Water by Veryan Weston

Veryan Weston piano

1 - 00:00 to 13:40 - Water 1
2 - 13:40 to 19:03 - Rain
3 - 19:04 to 25:32 - Water 2
4 - 25:33 to 33:21 - Footwork
5 - 33:22 to 42:12 - Water 3
6 - 42:12 to 47:06 - Khène

This is a recording from a cassette found at home titled 'Water' and dated '28/11/88'. It is most likely a preparation for my first solo piano concert abroad a couple of days later, at a music festival in St Etienne (France). It was recorded at the Hatfield Music Centre in Hertfordshire on an Estonia Soviet concert grand piano. It was a very beautifully idiosyncratic piano... one of my favourite pianos of all time.

This was a time of significant involvements with three key musician friends: the beginning of a long collaboration with Phil Minton, which included the 'Ways' project, ongoing duet gigs with Lol Coxhill, which included jazz and show tunes as well as open improvisations ('Standard Conversions') and an ongoing commitment to Trevor Watts' Moiré Music; the album 'With One Voice' was released on Trevor's Arc Records in September 1988. Two years before this, in 1986, Eddie Prévost had put out my solo LP 'Underwater Carol' on Matchless Records, consisting of 10 varied solo piano tracks.

All these mentioned experiences became interlinked, with free-flowing aqueous improvisations in order to create a continuous piece of music called 'Water' lasting 47 minutes, which was when the C90 cassette tape ran out.
With this recording there is, on occasion, a preoccupation with speed, versatility and 'technical mastery' that other musicians have chosen to avoid. This was possibly due to youth and inexperience. For this reason, the value of this music, to put it into Lol Coxhill's words, will be in the 'Ear of the Beholder'.

since 1994

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