Orient Express by Leigh Cline

THE SONGS

ORIENT EXPRESS - The title song, with rhythms as varied as 22/16 and 15/16, is a musical journey along much of the eastern route of the legendary ORIENT EXPRESS. The music includes guitar and clarinet improvisations, synthesizers and Balkan tambura.

ASIA MAJOR - Played in the flowing, romantic style of the Middle East using the modes of Hijaz and Ushak, the first part features synthesizers and guitar. The second half of the piece features clarinet and Turkish saz (long neck lute) playing improvisations over a 5/4 rhythm, accompanied by synthesizers and percussion, including tabla and zils (finger cymbals).

ZEYBEK - Fashioned on the Greek derivation of the Turkish Eagle Dance from the Aegean Coast of Asia Minor, this piece features synthesizers, guitar and bouzouki over the traditional 9/4 rhythm.

BLACK SEA FANTASY - Featuring Michael Kaliontzidis, the foremost kemenche(Black Sea fiddle) player in Greece. This instrument is pictured in early Byzantine paintings. The song rhythm is based on a 9/16 dance from the area around present day Giresun, Turkey (ancient Kerasous), the Black sea town where the Romans discovered "cherries" and named them for the town.

CROSSTALK - A synthesis of Eastern and Western styles featuring guitar,kemenche, fretless bouzouki and Iranian santur (hammered dulcimer) over rock-style synth, bass and drum bed tracks.

YANNA - With echoes of the mountainous regions of the Epirus area of northern Greece and southern Albania, this piece features flutes, guitar and synthesizers and is named for the city of Yannina in Greece, the old capital of the region.

TRABZON REVISITED - Featuring solo guitar, as well as two of Greece's foremost Pontic Greek musicians - Mihalis Kaliontzidis on kemenche and Polios Papagiannidis on tulum (double chanter bagpipe) - this piece incorporates two ancient dance forms as described by Xenophon in the 4th Century B.C.in his travels through the Black Sea area of present day Turkey. Also included is one of the melodies of the 1200-year-old Digenes Akritas, the epic poem of Byzantine border warriors, that is still sung today.

OFFSET - As the name of this song implies, almost every bar has a time change, moving, for example, from 13/8 to 8/8/ to 14/8 to 7/8 to 12/8, without compromising the smoothness and flow of the melody.

THE SABRES OF PARADISE - Starting with a long santur taksim or improvisation,this medley is a mixture of styles, voicings, melodies and rhythms from areas of the Caucasus Mountains as diverse as Daghestan, Ossetia, Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia.

Leigh Cline - Guitar, Synthesizers, Tambura, Saz

Andrew Affleck - Bass

Dinos Carambelas - Drums

John Crown - Drums

Mihalis Kaliontzidis - Kemenche

Murat Kayalak - Saz

Ali Koushkani - Santur

Polios Papagiannidis - Tulum

George Roumanis - Bouzouki

Anne Thompson - Flute, Alto Flute

Stavros Tsikos - clarinet

Leonidas Zafiris - Bouzouki, Fretless Bouzouki

Composed by Leigh Cline

Produced by Leigh Cline

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