private
Gongchime (KO,2006)***'
Las Vegas born Greg Turner was a soloist for the Nevada Classical Guitar Society, and majored in music at Northern Arizona University where he studied composition. Later he directed NAU school jazz combos where he played bass. He also participated with the NAU steel drum ensemble. Further curiosity led him to experience the Miami Cuban sound, the New Orleans blues, the Mexican Mariachi music, Korean traditional music and Piphat Mon in Thailan. In the meanwhile he studied aesthetics, music composition, ethnomusicology with especially gamelan transcriptions and East Indian musical practices. He jammed with Korean jazz marimba player and music professor Baek Jin Woo and blues artist Son Yong Woo (Shicheon Blues) in South-Korea where he lives now.
Instruments he plays are sitar, Korean Kayageum (koto), guengari (small gong), jing (medium gong), chango (double headed drum played with stick and a hard ball mallet), Chapman stick, steel drums, didgeridoo, and a gamelan orchestra set. He has built himself xylophones, thumb pianos, stamping tubes, berimbau, Spike fiddles, hammered dulcimers from Arabia, China, South Easth Asia, metal bells and flutes.
His music combines melodic motives from jazz, rhythmic motives from the Middle East, India, Africa, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bali, Cuba and the Caribbean. He also uses drones, modal chord progressions and instruments from around the world such as Koto, Gongs and Gamelan. Also, he sometimes utilizes interlocking patterns in the vein of gamelan and African Amadinda. As Greg Turner says “My music could be described as Bankok Blue meets Deep Forest. I'll be marketing my Resplendent Garden of Contemplation/Gongchime Rainforest project to the Cultural Creative market as well as to T.V. and film through sound libraries.”
The music is a combination of gamelan with varied percussion and what seems like close multicoloured acoustic arrangements which almost seem designed with one synthesizer or computer, because it’s all played very strict and restricted, in a positive sense. The feeling completely takes all elements from the east, which makes an unusual vision. A very enjoyable fresh approach with 10 tracks which are over too quickly.
