First United Methodist Church Tue. The challenge of existence, I realize, is finding words when an experience surpasses your tired old ordinary everyday experiences. Gips flows from the ground up into the violin like a tree in the wind. Reaching, demanding, yielding,, disappearing-death and resurrection arching through the span of every musical phrase. Once you have been in the same room with Arkadiy Gips' playing,you will know what it means to give yourself wholely to music.
Great bassists are special people, a separate species.
John Douglas is American Gypsy's bassist and he has the pure fluidity and molten solidity to hold down the fort even when he's flying as high as everybody else. And what a look on his face. There is nothing that moves me more than seeing a musician utterly digging the other musicians he's playing with. Jacobs is a transported enfant terrible with the muscle and disipline of absolutely mature musical understanding. The standing ovation given your performance is just the second one I recall in seventy of these concerts.