Free Touching: Live at Keep in Touch is a live recording of improvisational performances by Chinese guzheng

Guzheng

The guzheng or "gu zheng", also called zheng is a Chinese plucked zither. It has 18-23 or more strings and movable bridges....

 virtuoso Wang Yong and six international musicians: Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

 drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

mer Han Bennink

Han Bennink

Han Bennink is a Dutch jazz drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured his playing on clarinet, violin, banjo and piano....

, Austria

Austria

Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...

n violin

Violin

The violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....

ist Andreas Schreiber, American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

ist Dennis Rea

Dennis Rea

Dennis Rea is an American guitarist, writer and music event organizer currently living in Seattle. Rea first came to prominence as a member of the electronic music group Earthstar in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He is probably best known in the West as a musician for his work with the quintet...

, American trumpet

Trumpet

The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...

er Lesli Dalaba, and horn players Claudio Puntin and Steffen Schorn. The jam session from which the album is drawn was recorded during the Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

 International Jazz Festival on November 12, 1996 at Keep In Touch, reportedly China's first internet cafe

Internet cafe

An Internet café or cybercafé is a place which provides internet access to the public, usually for a fee. These businesses usually provide snacks and drinks, hence the café in the name...

.

The recorded performances are a mixture of American style free jazz and European influenced improvisation blended at times with traditional Chinese music. On his website Dennis Rea states that Free Touching: Live in Beijing at Keep in Touch is "quite possibly the first recording of free improvisation to emerge from China."

The album was released as a double CD in March, 2004

2004 in music

See also:* 2004 in music Record labels established in 2004-January:*January 1**The Vienna New Year's Concert is conducted by Riccardo Muti.**Kurt Nilsen wins World Idol....

 on the Hong Kong

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...

-based Noise Asia Records label. It is distributed in North America by Verge Music Distributing.

Track listing

Red Disc - 58:51

1. "Improvisation 1"
2. "Improvisation 2"
3. "Improvisation 3"
4. "Improvisation 4"
5. "Improvisation 5"
6. "Improvisation 6"

Pink Disc - 62:13

1. "Improvisation 7"
2. "Improvisation 8"
3. "Improvisation 9"
4. "Improvisation 10"
5. "Improvisation 11"

Personnel

• Wang Yong - guzheng
• Han Bennink
  Han Bennink
  Han Bennink is a Dutch jazz drummer and percussionist. On occasion his recordings have featured his playing on clarinet, violin, banjo and piano....
  
   - drums
• Andreas Schreiber - violin
• Dennis Rea
  Dennis Rea
  Dennis Rea is an American guitarist, writer and music event organizer currently living in Seattle. Rea first came to prominence as a member of the electronic music group Earthstar in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He is probably best known in the West as a musician for his work with the quintet...
  
  - guitar
• Steffen Schorn - horns
• Claudio Puntin - horns
• Lesli Dalaba - trumpet