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***** PHOS DUO PRESENTS *****
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****** THE LOST SESSIONS ******
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This video is a part of a series which was planned to be done with a professional studio recording along with two CD releases; however, when humans make plans, Gods laugh, as they say. A very unfortunate accident left a good part of the studio recordings damaged beyond repair, and the project was pretty much killed. However, we - Phos Duo, who are Antonis Ladopoulos on Saxophone and yours truly (Sami Amiris) on piano - decided to salvage anything salvagable and post it here on Youtube, as a way to keep something alive out of all this, no matter how little. Thus the lost sessions were born, and they truly are lost.

The only audio available is the audio from the two cameras we used, and we did everything we could from that. So you will hear all sorts of sounds, cracks from my poor, suffering piano stool, etc., but we assure you they are all innocent sounds! So, these are not perfect recordings. They are a small and very raw sample of what would have been. Still, we present it here for your pleasure, and hope that the poor sound quality won't irritate you too much.

We do plan to re-record everything soon.

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***** A NIGHT IN TUNISIA *****
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The idea of playing the tune in 9/8 came naturally as I was playing with the bass line in my head one day a few years ago. It occured to me (and I am pretty confident that I was not the only one with the idea, nor the first!) that the whole tune would sound great in this time signature. It gave a freedom of interpretation of the melody, and a lot of space for nice counterrhythms, all of which were exploited in this rendition of the tune.

I first played it in a heroic rehearsal with the incredible Cubans Enrique Pasqual "Kiki" Bu on Congas, Yoel Soto on bass and George Mourtos on Drums. There was no chart, just a "you play this, you play that" kind of rehearsal, and it went incredible! But we are talking about class A musicians here anyway.

Then, I played it in SGT with the greats Rex Richardson on Trumpet, Antonis Ladopoulos on Sax, Periklis Trivolis on Bass and Spyros Panagiotopoulos on the Drums, and I think it went great too. So I decided that the arrangement was versatile enough to be played by a duo.

There came a unique set of challenges with the Duo setting, as to how to keep the interest going for so long just by two people. Well, music to us should be about feelings, pictures, direction and energy. So we let ourselves be led to different pictures, all subvervient to the form of the compositionin one way or another. This arrangement is the result.

It is a long and technically very demanding arrangement. I wrote it for many different settings, from duo (or solo) to mid-size group to big band.

Thank you, and I do hope you enjoy it!

-Sami Amiris -

Disclaimer: No copyright infringement of the creators of the tune intended..