Nobu Stowe

Hommage An Klaus Kinski is the first Soul Note album of pianist Nobu Stowe, made with sound designer Lee Pembleton and credited to their joint project, with the subtitle Total-Improvisations on Sonic Canvas. Apart from a closing 'Round Midnight, everything is improvised. In a 2010 interview with Glenn Astarita for All About Jazz, Stowe said he wanted "an introverted approach to fully improvised music". He took his cue from the chamber-free work of Jimmy Giuffre, Lee Konitz and Paul Bley, played over a canvas of sounds supplied by Pembleton.

Stowe chose clarinettist Perry Robinson, who also plays micro-ocarina, for his roots in that chamber tradition. Reedman Blaise Siwula (tenor saxophone, alto clarinet), drummer John McLellan and Ross Bonadonna on bass clarinet, alto saxophone and guitar complete the cast, and Bonadonna was also the recording engineer. The tracks are named after the formation that plays them: three duos, two trios, a quartet and two quintets, the longest being the 21-minute Quintet III, while the title piece and 'Round Midnight are played by the trio with Bonadonna. The title piece, improvised by Stowe, Pembleton and Bonadonna, was named only after the session, because it reminded Stowe of a scene from Werner Herzog's Fitzcarraldo with its Popol Vuh soundtrack. Budd Kopman, reviewing the album for All About Jazz in December 2007, heard birds and rain at times in Pembleton's electronics, and dense passages where Stowe's left hand merges with them. He concluded that the record "is not the easiest music to gestalt, it is well worth the repeated effort".

This is the original Soul Note CD 121337-2, released in 2007.