There’s not a weak tune on the album. It sounds like everyone’s putting their heart and soul into everything they play.
Available from Bandcamp
Kostas Patsiotis – Double bass; Yiannis Papadopoulos – Piano; Michael Tsiftsis – Guitar; Dimitris Klonis – Drums
Kostas Patsiotis’s debut record, OCTOBER, is dedicated to the month of October. In astrology it’s considered a transformative month. It’s a time of re-evaluation; what you want to keep in your life and what you want to get rid of. It’s been a record-breaking hot summer where I live so I’m looking forward to the cooler weather in October.
Patsiotis started playing bass at thirteen. He’s been teaching double bass at music high schools since 2014. He started his own quartet in December of last year. He’s an active member of the Athens, Greece jazz scene. He’s played on over 100 releases of different styles of music. After hearing how good OCTOBER is I’m surprised he hadn’t recorded under his own name sooner.
Patsiotis wrote all eight compositions on OCTOBER. The first tune, ‘Away, ’is very much in the jazz tradition but it’s “different.” I heard cartoon music, gypsy, western classical, and rock, all in a neat little jazz package. This is adventurous music that works beautifully.
I think the quartet’s only been together a year but they sound like they’ve been playing a lot longer than that. I like Yiannis Papadopoulos’s piano lines. They often sound like simple folk melodies. They sound great next to Michael Tsiftsis’s intricate guitar work.
Drums and bass duet the intro to title track, ‘OCTOBER.’ Athens born Dimitris Klonis is a tasty drummer who’s both captivating and unobtrusive. Kostas Patsiotis mixes a walking bass line and arpeggios. Piano and guitar trade solos plus a couple of tempo changes.
Papadopoulos’s piano makes a pretty entrance on ‘Rosario ’with drums tagging along on snare and cymbal. A tempo change signals the guitar’s coming in. the piano’s back, slower, a little quieter. There’s a couple more of these tempo and dynamic changes; each change a little more assertive then the one before.
There’s not a weak tune on the album. It sounds like everyone’s putting their heart and soul into everything they play. Patsiotis has a couple of fine bass solos on ‘Last Scene ’and ‘Unexpected Invention.’ His bass has a really nice woody tone.
This was recorded in Athens in just one day. You can hear everyone equally in the mix. There’s a lot going on in OCTOBER; the tempo changes, the dynamics, the stellar musicianship. I recommend this.
