In 1975 I was part of a great band “Lookout Farm” with Dave Liebman, Richie Beirach, Jeff Williams and Badal Roy. The band had recorded for ECM and we were touring Europe when I met Matthias Winckelmann the owner of Enja records. Matthias asked me to record for his label and this was a dream come true for me. I had often thought about what I would present if given the opportunity to lead a record date and present my own music and concepts.
On July 1st, 1975 we recorded Father Time at Trixi Studios in Munich, Germany. Each cut highlights the bass in various duos’ and trios except for two cuts with the whole group playing together.
In 2006 Matthias remastered Father Time from analog tape to 24-bit and re-released the recording featuring his son David’s beautiful art work. The album is dedicated to my father who was a master mandolin player and my first teacher. I hope you enjoy listening to this musical journey.
The career of the great bassist Frank Tusa is one of the great mysteries of jazz, as he was only involved in a handful of recordings throughout the 70s. Fortunately, Enja reissued this stunner in 2006. Father Time is Tusa’s only recording as a leader, unless you include Sunday Song, his duet album with Richie Beirach. It makes you wish he had recorded under his own name more often. The band he’s using is basically Lookout Farm, Dave Liebman’s band, which Tusa was a member of at the time, but the orientation is completely different.
FRANK TUSA has been active as a professional musician,composer and educator for over 30 years. He has written original music for dance, film,TV and commerical radio. Frank studied classical bass with Homer Mensch, music theory and composition at Brooklyn Academy of Music. He spent the next twenty years in New York continuing his studies and working through the ranks as a performer, educator, composer and arranger.