Alex Cline continues in the spirit of his ECM release The Lamp & the Star, with this percussion-voice-violin-guitar-keyboard-bass-lineup. Drummer/percussionist Cline has worked with jazz greats Charles Lloyd, Charlie Haden, Julius Hemphill, John Carter, Bobby Bradford, Vinny Golia and many others. Produced by famed jazz drummer Peter Erskine, Cline"s latest release Sparks Fly Upward includes pieces dedicated to Tony Williams, Andrei Tarkovsky, Richard Grossman, and Eric von Essen. Mr. Cline sets to music text by Rilke, Tarkovsky and Dorothea Grossman. The Alex Cline Ensemble features singer Aina Kemanis (who has recorded with Barre Phillips and Marilyn Mazur), guitarist G. E. Stinson, violinist Jeff Gauthier, keyboardist Wayne Peet and bassist Mike Elizondo. Producer Peter Erskine writes: "Alex Cline has a musical sensibility and sensitivity that belong to another time...a time when intimate thoughts were best expressed by someone sitting down, setting pen to paper, and sending their innermost feelings by land or sea, to be read by the intended a few days or weeks later...in short, a time when time really counted. This recording is like a very special letter written by a wise friend; the news it carries is current, but its real message is timeless. The musicianship is inspired, the engineering is translucent. This album is a gift." -Peter Erskine