David Friedman, Tilo Weber, Oliver Potratz - Surge Of Silence (2024) Hi Res

Sometimes, seemingly unrelated events come together. Many years ago when I was busy doing studio work in New York, I met the young recording engineer Marti Robertson, who impressed all the heavy studio cats with her great expertise and charisma.

In the course of the following years we had the opportunity to work on several occasions together and I was always impressed by her calm and relaxed style in the studio. As coincidence would have it, we both moved to Europe in the 80’; she to Italy and I to Berlin. We kind of lost track of each other. Marty opened a studio in Cagliari, Sardinia.

When considering where to record the new Generations Trio album, the first engineer I thought of for this project was Marti. I knew she would get along famously with Tilo and Oliver and I had a sixth sense that her personality and special skill set would bring our music to life.

The combination of good vibes (excuse the pun), good food, beautiful sourroundings and warm hospitality from everyone we encountered, created the ideal four day recording adventure. The three of us felt so at home in her studio that we were able to finish recording the written compositions In the first two days. We still had two days left and they provided me the opportunity to discover not only how great Tilo and Oliver are as instrumentalists and musicians, but also how much we have collectively grown as an improvising ensemble.

The last two days we spent recording spontanously created compositions. Although we are in fact a Trio, considering Marty’s inspiring input, it felt like a quartet experience. When listening back to the studio takes, I noticed that the music had a wide range of dynamic expression, often coming from nothing and growing into a quiete, controlled explosion. The only expression I could think of that would captured this feeling, was “surge of silence” (“Anstieg der Stille”) which I chose as a title for the album. Maybe this is all a figment of my imagination, so listen for yourself and let your ears make up your mind.