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Chicago's Flippomusic Releases the First Jazz Setting of the Tao Te Ching: "Tao Tunes" (Oppilf Records)

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Dave Flippo's modern jazz quintet Flippomusic has been blending various ethnic music with jazz since 1992. Their most recent project creates an ethnic collaboration through the ancient Chinese texts, the “Tao Te Ching" to create Tao Tunes. Flippo has adapted several translations into lyrics and set them in a wide range of styles. The CD, on Oppilf Records, is due for release on November 27th.

Players include Dan Hesler-sax/flute, Dave Flippo-keys/vocals, Donn De Santo-bass/vocals, Heath Chappell-drums; Guest artists include: Larry Gray-cello, Neal Alger-guitar, Hamid Drake-percussion, Mike Levin-clarinets and flute, Katherine Hughes-violin.

Aside from his jazz experience, the project's widely diverse styles and extended arrangements draws upon Flippo's compositional training, which includes a Doctorate and Masters in Music Compositon from the University of Michigan and the Eastman School of Music.

The piece “Sick" combines a “moving drone" with areas of two, three and four voice counterpoint based on non-Western scales; “Fearless" is a bossa nova scored sax trio and cello; “Question" is a 6/4 Tango accompanied by a wandering string and flute line. “Spirit" is a freeform ambient depiction of a mountain range for cello, tenor sax, spoken word and other instruments.

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