#russkaplan

[ulyssesfans]

[ulyssesfans]

[ulyssesfans]

[theulyssescycle]

Russ Kaplan's debut album as a bandleader - The Ulysses Cycle - is a 20-song narrative suite based on Homer's Odyssey.  Russ had been searching for a story to musicalize that would allow him to compose in all of the eclectic styles that fascinate him, and which captures the ideals he loves best about playing jazz: spontaneity, excitement, thinking on your feet.  The Odyssey, which tells the tale of a cunning hero traveling through exotic lands as he struggles home from war, was clearly the perfect fit. The project began as Russ' 'birthday present to himself' in January 2008. After years of touring and perfecting the full 'play', recording was done in 3 full day sessions in 2012.

[theulyssescycle]

In the great hall with the suitors around them, Athena lifts her disguise to reveal Odysseus, true ruler of Ithaca. Swords clash as Telemachus and Odysseus stand against overwhelming odds and slick the floor with their enemies' blood. When it is finished, only the father and the son remain alive and standing in the sullied hall.

[theulyssescycle]

Finally, without impediment, the husband stands before his wife, bloodied by his foes. The son looks upon his mother and father embracing, wet with tears that taste of the ocean. Odysseus and Penelope are reunited after twenty years apart, king and queen.

[theulyssescycle]

Vengeance begets vengeance, blood the force that turns the wheel perpetually. The suitors' families demand recompense for their dead. Odysseus must stand trial. The wanderer is set forth on stormy seas again, banished for ten years as punishment for his crimes.

[theulyssescycle]

All songs end in quiet, so while this one still sounds, listen! Once our story began with a man who wandered, longing for home. Odysseus begins another story, another song, as the shores of Ithaca recede behind his boats and he once again turns his face into hard winds and the spray of storm-tossed seas.