Karayorgis, Pandelis Quintet

System Of 5

Label: Hatology Country: Switzerland

"For this occasion Pandelis Karayorgis fronts a new band and so, drawing upon both his own and a few adapted tactics, System Of 5 is a bit different.... Refocusing our view of tradition from several distinctive contemporary perspectives, the music of System Of 5 seems somehow familiar and surprising at the same time. It's difficult, but it's what art is meant to do, and these musicians do it well."-Art Lange, from the liner notes

System Of 5

"I started working on writing and arranging for a tenor sax-trombone fronted quintet about a year ago. The first performance was in Chicago at Elastic with Keefe Jackson, ts - Jeb Bishop, trombone - Nate McBride, bass and Nori Tanaka, drums. Encouraged by that performance I wrote some more music and performed it in October 2007 again in Chicago at Gallery 37 with a different line-up: Jason Stein, bass clarinet - Jeff Parker, guitar - Nate McBride, bass and Tim Daisy, drums. Back in Boston, I returned to the original two-horn frontline and was lucky to be able to enlist some of Boston's best players for the continuation of this project.

Luther Gray, Jef Charland and I are well-acquainted through numerous collaborations over the past few years, mostly as a trio. I had played with Matt Langley about 18 years ago in a larger ensemble and had wanted to play again ever since, so it was a great joy to renew our working relationship over this project. Jeff Galindo has played extensively with everybody else in the band but me, but our rapport was extraordinary from the start. After a couple of local performances in the area, we were ready to record."-Pandelis Karayorgis, karayorgis.com