PIANO DUETS

After releasing five duo CDs on Intakt Records with Silke Eberhard, Lauren Newton, Rudi Mahall, Alexander von Schlippenbach and Louis Sclavis, Aki Takase now presents a breathtaking and entertaining recording with Han Bennink - two personalities familiar with all traditions of jazz who love to go on an expedition. Aki Takase offers such wondrous compositions as the title song 'Two for Two,' an homage to Han Bennink called 'Ohana Han,' 'My Tokyo' or 'Rolled Up.' the duo also reveals it's great playfulness while playing standards by Thelonious Monk and Eric Dolphy. Han Bennink is swinging in best New Orleans tradition while Aki Takase shows more and more of her poetic and melodic side.

MY ELLINGTON

Aki Takase, the Berlin-based pianist, is one of the great personalities of modern jazz. Moments of freedom, form and humour characterize this stylistically versatile avant-gardist, the stubborn virtuoso who toys with jazz traditions. In the year of her 70th birthday, Aki Takase was honoured with The Berlin Jazz Prize. Recorded over two days at the Sendesaal Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg, the album includes some pieces captured live during the award ceremony, and some recorded in a studio setting in the same historic room. The piece Bach Factory features Alexander von Schlippenbach as a guest and the Japanese author Yoko Tawada appears on Hokahoka Hokosai. Aki Takase is inspired by the Japanese painter Katsushika Hokusai. For Aki Takase, Hokusai was a hugely passionate and brilliant artist with an experimental mind who lived only with and for his paintings. "Hokusai showed so many directions in painting, which is why I wanted to convey various colours in improvisation. Music is like a colour. For me, red and light-blue are gentle colours. These were the colours that I felt. That's my internal landscape. I feel a strong connection to Hokusai. "