Set in Motion – Irida Music

Release Date: January 27, 2023

Set in Motion

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

Jazz

About

Grigoris Theodoridis

The double bassist Grigoris Theodoridis was born and raised in Agrinio. Despite the difficulties of
living in the Greek countryside, he managed to get seriously involved with music from an early age
and to indulge in jazz and improvisational music. Later, at the age of 17 he moved to Athens and
studied jazz and classical double bass. In 2011 he moved to the Netherlands to study jazz
performance at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague and received his diploma with honors in
2016. Since 2017 he has traveled and played music all around the world, at festivals in Europe and
jazz venues in New York,Tokyo, Shanghai, London, Copenhagen etc. During his travels to New
York he was a student of the legendary double bass player Ron Carter as well as of Orlando le
Fleming. He has attended seminars and lectures by Larry Grenadier, Joe Martin, Brad Mehldau, Jeff
Ballard, Enrico Pieranunzi, Mark Guiliana, John Patitucci, Vijay Iyer and David Liebman among
others. He has collaborated with many of the best jazz musicians in Europe such as Juraj Stanik, Eric
Ineke, Rik Mol, Attila Gyarfas, Thomas Maasz (the latter two are also members of his trio) and is
preparing a collaboration with the Japanese pianist Mikiko Nagatake, which is going to involve
Japanese and and Greek music traditions.

Discography

As a co-leader:
Aris Papadopoulos, Grigoris Theodoridis: Anapolontas (Irida Jazz) 2021

As a sideman:
Christina Psycha: Violetera (seld-released) 2021
Christos Kladas: Jazz Suite No.1 (self-released) 2022
Menios Gounaris: Set in motion (Irida Jazz) 2022

Menios Gounaris Trio

Menios Gounaris was born in Agrinio in 1983. He studied classic piano and music theory with Konstantinos Kotinis in the conservatory of Contemporary Art.
Since 2003 to 2006 he attended jazz piano lessons in the Municipality Conservatory of Patra with Giorgos Metaxas. During the period 2008-2010 he studied jazz piano and harmony with Stavros Lantsias. At the same period, he created his own trio, with which he made performances in several places in Greece. In 2011 he continued his studies at the Conservatory of Utrecht with Bert van den Brink and Randal Corsen.

He has collaborated with artists like Kostis Maravellias, Kostas Livadas, Penny Baltantzi, Zoi Papadopoulou, Matoula Zamani and he has taken part as a pianist in theatrical performances, under the direction of Thodoris Gonis. He is a permanent member of Takis Barberis Group. In 2020 the album of the group Flood, called First Drop was released in 2020.

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Menios Gounaris Trio - Set in Motion

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