Petros Klampanis grew up on the island of Zakynthos in the Ionian Sea. It wasn’t seafaring that took him from there, but music. He was drawn to the double bass early on, and jazz became his musical home, his Mecca: since 2008, after a stopover in Amsterdam, New York has been Klampanis’ main residence.
He was soon playing there with cracks like Ari Hoenig, Greg Osby and Jean-Michel Pilc. Recorded an album with fellow countryman and vibraphonist Christos Rafalides, who also lived there. And eventually founded his own bands with many of the Israeli shooting stars of the New York scene such as Odet Tzur, Shai Maestro, Gilad Hekselman and Nitai Hershkovitz as well as a trio with the German drummer Bodek Janke and the Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu. The latter also sits in Tora Collective, with which Klampanis now returns to his roots, to the Mediterranean music of his youth. Klampanis is now presenting the resulting exciting album of the same name, which was released on the Munich Yellowbird label, in the Unterfahrt.
Tora Collective by Petros Klampanis, Saturday, January 13th, 8:30 p.m., Unterfahrt, Einsteinstr. 42, www.unterfahrt.de