Pianist and composer Menios Gounaris presents Set In Motion, his latest album, released by Irida Jazz.

It is an album inspired by the 2020-2021 pandemic and recorded during that time. The composer attempts to express the need for action and creativity, as described by the title.

His collaborators are the talented Grigoris Theodorids (Double Bass) and Jason Wastor (Drums).

“The new generation of musicians in the Athens Jazz scene is especially exiting. Its members are difficult to classify under familiar labels, take risks freely and move fluidly within the various idioms of the music that they serve. Looking back on Menios Gounaris’ trajectory through the years, from the Takis Barberis Group, where he is a permanent member, up to the album First Drop by Flood, with its purely electric sound, his flexibility and his wide musical breadth of field are plain to see, rightfully earning him his place as a vital member of the aforementioned scene. Set in Motion is the latest addition to the colorful canvas of his career and is his most straight-ahead jazz offering so far. Driven by the need to create and to express himself during the dystopian and suffocating atmosphere created by the pandemic, with its constant restrictions and uncertainty, Menios Gounaris wrote an album whose mood leans towards the aggressive, rather than the melancholy. His compositions are varied and powerful, but are based on a uniform structure. Bassist Grigoris Theodoridis and drummer Jason Wastor, artists who like Menios Gounaris are multifaceted and in rapid ascent, with active participation in many and varied musical groups, strengthen his aesthetic approach with their presence, giving his six compositions a feeling which is at once free flowing and tight. Set in motion is an album with distinctly modern aesthetics, but set firmly in the tradition of Jazz piano trios from both the U.S.A. and Europe. Above all, it is an album that wins over its listeners, taking them on a journey to a brighter place, never once becoming tedious or indifferent. And that is no small feat…”

MANTHOS GIOURTZOGLOU
Radio producer- www.keepjazzin.gr