I was always strongly attracted to folk-music, for it speaks in beautiful, clear words about the present and the past of the men and women that play and sing it, as well as the story of the place they live in. Feeling personally rather deprived of a strong musical heritage positively connected to my place of birth, I think this recording is about recovering a little piece of folk-music for myself - for its songes surely speak about the places I've been to and my past and present- and with this also a sense of home and integrity, if only in a metaphorical and fairly abstract way. Klaus Gesing
Klaus Gesing was born in Düsseldorf/Germany on the 13th of December 1968.
Music has always been there, although it wasn´t until he changed to the tenorsaxophon at the age of 17(after some years of classical clarinet), that his improvisational talents became obvious. Encouraged and inspired by his teacher Johannes Seidemann, he started to move very fast and only two years later he won the Youth Jazz Competition of Northrhine-Westfalia (just the name of a german county).
As an immediate consequence, he was sent around half of the planet playing in the Youth Jazz Orchestra of Northrhine-Westfalia, a band sponsored by the german council of arts and the Goethe Institut. With this band he played in India, Australia, Singapur in 1988 and 1989-90 in South America, and he returned with a deep affection for folkmusic in general, that was not going to leave him again.
With confidence, due to his early success, he decided to make music his profession and immersed into studies of Jazz and classical music at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague/ Netherlands. His teachers were, among others, John Ruocco(Jazz) and Leo van Oostrom (Classical Saxophone), who, in retrospect, ranks among the few deeply inspiring and respected teachers that one can meet on his way to the mastery of an instrument.
Another one of these great players and educators was Dave Liebman. Gesing met him in the course of a masterclass in The Hague, and was encouraged to focus on the sopranosaxophone for quite a while. He was invited twice by Liebman to come to the States and pass some time in the company of fellow musicians and teachers from around the world. (among them for example Michael Brecker). On and of they continued to meet on stages around europe since that time.
