Turquoise Sessions from Joe Lasqo takes a fresh look at two of the world's most powerful music cultures - India and Japan - through the lenses of 20th-century compositional/piano techniques and jazz improvisation and uses Asian musical forms to surprising effect on modernist material. The result is elegantly startling - ragas played in a style as if Debussy had lived in Mumbai and ancient Japanese shakuhachi and gagaku "standards" refracted through the serialist prisms of Messiaen, early Stockhausen, and Paul Bley. Reflecting a repertoire of Indo-Modernist and "Neo-Gaku" work pioneered in residency at San Francisco's legendary Viracocha, Joe takes a unique approach to the combination of piano and Asian music that is a sound all his own.

Joe Lasqo - piano



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"Solo piano and a fine listening experience. He combines North and South Indian raga forms, traditional Japanese flute music, some classical techniques, and solo jazz-based piano improvisation into longish pieces that are unpredictable throughout yet quite nice to listen to."
- Max Level, KFJC FM89.7

"There's something compelling about the solo piano sound. It is stark and lush all at once. Lasqo's source material highlights this paradox and helps to make this set that much more striking."
- J. Worley, Aiding & Abetting