Timeless Aki Takase & Daniel Erdmann

• 1 Reveal Our Identity 03:38
• 2 Niigata 07:44
• 3 Eyes of Wind 03:52
• 4 Daniel, My Time 02:30
• 5 Fire and Water 03:23
• 6 In Walk Bud 04:11
• 7 Suiteki 04:39
• 8 Dark Carnival 03:58
• 9 Ende Gut, Alles Gut 04:34
• 10 Love Collection 04:00
• 11 Miniatur 04:27
• 12 Time Travel 04:26
• 13 Reveal My Identity 03:19
• Total Runtime 54:41

Info for Timeless

Following their albums “Isn’t it Romantic” (released on BMC Records in 2021) and “Ellington” (released on Enja Records in 2024), Aki Takase and Daniel Erdmann now present their third duo album, titled “Timeless.” It consists mainly of new original compositions that the two have developed over time. Time is the central theme of the program. What is time? What is silence? How elastic is time? Perhaps, with the help of music, we can travel into the future and the past? In any case, collaborating is extremely important to Aki Takase and Daniel Erdmann, and so they are in constant dialogue and experimenting with new compositions and formats. As a duo, the two are now also working toward something larger: the “Timeless Orchestra,” in which different generations of musicians will come together. A project centered on “Transmission”—sharing experiences with the younger generation of musicians—and “Projection”: Where is our music headed? What is happening now, and what might the future bring? The linear timeline is suspended, and we aim to connect the best of the past with ideas for the future in the present.

The “Timeless” duo program serves as preparation for this, and along the way, guests will often join the duo’s concerts; there will be workshops and gatherings.

Aki Takase, piano
Daniel Erdmann, saxophone

Aki Takase
was born in Osaka and grew up in Tokyo. She began taking piano lessons at the age of three and majored in piano during her studies at Toho Gakuen University in Tokyo. A lengthy stay in the USA followed in 1979; in 1981, she made her European debut and gave an acclaimed performance at the Berlin Jazz Festival (at the Philharmonie) with her trio, featuring Takeo Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Ino. She has undertaken numerous tours and recordings with Dave Liebman, Sheila Jordan, Cecil McBee, Lester Bowie, Fred Frith, Otomo Yoshihide, Bob Moses, Joe Henderson, Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, John Scofield, and many others.

In the 1990s, she formed highly successful duos and toured worldwide with vocalist Maria João and saxophonist David Murray. She also performed in a trio with Reggie Workman and Rashied Ali, in duos with Alex von Schlippenbach, and in projects with the Toki String Orchestra.

RECORD AWARDS AND PROJECTS: Aki Takase received the UDJ Award in 1990, 1991, 1994, and 1998. From 1997 to 1999, she served as a guest lecturer at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin. In 1998, she was awarded the *Berliner Zeitung* Critics' Prize. Her solo CD *Le Cahier du Bal* (Leo Records) was released in 2001, as was her "W.C. Handy Project"—titled *St. Louis Blues* (Enja Records) and featuring Rudi Mahall, Nils Wogram, Fred Frith, and Paul Lovens—which won the SWR Jazz Prize in 2002.

In 2004, she received the prestigious Annual Award of the German Record Critics. Since then, numerous new projects have emerged, including duos with Alexander von Schlippenbach, Lauren Newton, Han Bennink, Silke Eberhard, and Louis Sclavis, as well as trios such as LOK 03 (Alexander von Schlippenbach & DJ Illvibe), TAMA (Jan Roder and Oliver Steidle), Aki and the Good Boys, and the La Planète Quartet with Louis Sclavis, Vincent Courtois, and Dominique Pifarély, to name but a few.

She is one of the most creative jazz artists of our time. For years, she has collaborated with the extraordinary dancer Yui Kawaguchi on her ongoing project "Die Stadt im Klavier" (The City in the Piano). Aki Takase received the Berlin Jazz Award in 2018, and in 2021, she was honored with the German Jazz Prize for Best Solo Artist (Piano/Keyboards) as well as the Albert Mangelsdorff Prize.

Daniel Erdmann
was born in Wolfsburg in 1973. He has been playing the saxophone since 1983 and studied under Gebhard Ullmann, among others, at the Hanns Eisler School of Music Berlin. He has recorded albums for various labels—including BMC, ENJA, ACT, Label Bleu, and Intakt—and performs worldwide with bands and musicians such as Das Kapital, Vincent Courtois, Aki Takase, Carlos Bica, Heinz Sauer, Samuel Rohrer, and Henri Texier. In 2014, he founded the Franco-German company DAS ATELIER and his new band, Daniel Erdmann’s Velvet Revolution, featuring Théo Ceccaldi and Jim Hart. The band’s debut album on BMC Records won the Annual Award of the German Record Critics and an Echo Jazz award. In the autumn of 2020, Daniel Erdmann was awarded the prestigious SWR Jazz Prize as part of the Enjoy Jazz Festival. In June 2021, he became a recipient of the inaugural German Jazz Prize.

Berlin-based Japanese pianist Aki Takase and saxophonist Daniel Erdmann first met in the mid-1990s, when Takase was teaching improvisation at the Hanns Eisler School of Music in Berlin and Erdmann was a student there. In 2000, Erdmann received a scholarship from the Franco-German Cultural Council and moved to Paris—marking the temporary end of his collaboration with the influential pianist. Fifteen years later, the two ran into each other by chance at a Paris airport. There, they agreed to finally play together again. That same year, Takase founded the quintet "Japanic," which released the album *Thema Prima* in 2019.

The pair began their duo collaboration in 2019 and intensified it during the first coronavirus lockdown in the spring of 2020. Despite the restrictions and technical challenges, there was a silver lining: the opportunity to focus entirely on the project. Writing about their first concert in France for the *Libération* newspaper’s jazz blog, Bruno Pfeiffer noted: "Complex chords and masterful melodies, combined with a sense of shared rapport—like two runners crossing the finish line hand in hand. By the end, the duo leaves us with an urge to dance."

This album contains no booklet.