The word magic comes up time and again when speaking of The Unknowable.
Both Dave Liebman and Adam Rudolph use the term when describing their “beautiful alchemy” that also included Tatsuya Nakatani, all three acclaimed artists working as one for this project.
Nakatani may not have been using the word “magic” when he refers to this trio’s unique chemistry; but when he speaks of “living life with sound spirit world,” I infer that he’s pointing to the same “voodoo of spontaneous high level musical communication” Liebman so aptly describes.
That “beautiful alchemy” Rudolph talks of could only have come about in light of previous separate and shared musical experiences between all three.
Essentially drummers, Rudolph and Nakatani, and Liebman the all-around reed player, have traveled their respective “spaceways” with just a few overlaps.
The Unknowable, made up of 13 completely improvised, group-composed pieces, provides distinct expressions from track to track, most of the selections ranging from between three and four minutes, the longest, the heliocentric, serene Cosmogram, clocking in at just under five.
How the three of them landed in Orange Music Sound Studio in New Jersey for a day recording in December 2016 can only be (hopefully) understood by brief backward glances of each artist that preceded their “fated” music meeting. In the end, though, we must be content with that “unknowable” element that courses through life and is certainly at the heart of this music.
