Tuba, violoncello and vocals. This sounds like experiment, like highly individual capers in the wake of the avant-garde. To Trio Rouge, however, such prejudice does not apply. For Michel Godard, Vincent Courtois and Lucilla Galeazzi devote themselves to the tradition of the Italian lied. The concept of 'canzone' is in this case too narrowly defined for the spectrum of musical ideas and heirlooms ranges from tender love songs via spontaneously improvised passages to angry Resistance verses from the First Wolrd War. The leader of the ensemble is the singer Lucilla Galeazzi. Born in Terni, she took to Italian and especially Umbrian folk music during her student days and has included it in quite different projects since. Since her first attempts as an artist in the 'Quatuor vocal' of Giovanna Marini (1977) she has consistently earned her place in the Mediterranean music scene, proving her stylistic versatility, now with Carlo Rizzo, then with Juan José Mosalini or Gianluigi Trovesi. In 1990 she got in touch with the group of the ARFI in Lyons, and it was through this connection that she got to know the other members of the future Trio Rouge. These musicians are all masters of their trade. The tuba player Michel Godard (*1960, Héricourt) was noticed by the musical public in the mid-1990s when he worked in the groups of Rabih Abou-Khalil and Louis Sclavis, though in France he had already been celebrated in the ensembles of Claude Barthélemy and Jean-Marc Padovani a decade earlier. With his striking individual style and seemingly unlimited virtuosity, Godard has extended the technical possibilities of the tuba and also revived the serpent, a Renaissance instrument. Vincent Courtois (*1968, Paris), on the other hand, is one of the whizz-kids of the European jazz scene. In 1974 he began to study violoncello at the conservatoire of Aubervilliers and soon was showered with prizes and awards. In 1989 he toured with Christian Escoudé, played in a duo with Martial Solal soon after, and performed at the side of Dave Holland and Michel Petrucciani. His international breakthrough also came with projects of Rabih Abou-Khalil and Louis Sclavis. Since the late 1990s Vincent has been among the international elite of his cello generation-#semi#- being an admirer of Pablo Casals, he is well-versed both in contemporary classical music and jazz music. Together, Courtois, Godard and Galeazzi have founded a trio that is unequalled ? as to its content, music and sensitivity with which the musicians translate their ideas into creative sound structures with Mediterranean atmosphere. Producer's Note: Sometimes you have to take detours to reach your goal. In September 2000 I was invited to attend a new project of the Italian Instabile Orchestra in Ruvo di Puglia. The concert took place as part of the Talos Jazz Festival, and being there, I took the opportunity to have a look at the other items on the programme as well. The weather god, however, did not mean well by the organizers. Instead of the scorching sun usually brooding over the Apulian landscape, there now were black clouds gathering in the sky. The concerts had to be transferred into the community hall, an ugly concrete building and example of municipal functional architecture. In this hall a strange trio appeared on the stage. Tuba, violoncello, vocals in front of two thousand people, on a stage with the charme of a basketball court. That seemed quite daring, but when Lucilla Galeazzi began to sing, the sobering surroundings were forgotten within moments. She and her two partners succeeded in casting their spell over the audience with sparsely arranged, yet extremely emotional and meaningful songs. The audience was wild with enthusiasm, and I was impressed. When two years later the opportunity arose to produce an album of my choice for Intuition, I remembered this crazy evening in September and got in touch with Michel Godard. And really, in January 2003, we found ourselves in the converted barn of the studio La buissonne near Orange. Outside snow and icy cold, inside the spirit of Mediterranean creativity. Galeazzi, Godard and Vincent Courtois got down to work with concrete ideas, sporadic performances in previous years having led to preferences in the repertoire. Within not even two days, there were made recordings of such moving intensity that everybody who put his head round the studio door was amazed. With this project, everything fit together perfectly to form a whole-#semi#- even the name of the band, Trio Rouge, was an inevitable consequence of songs such as 'Gorizza' and 'Bella Ciao' which are inspired by the spirit of the Resistance. The unusual instrumentation turned out to be not only workable but, with its transparency and power, even ideal for the intimate atmosphere of the music. Feeling to have created something fascinating, Lucilla, Michel and Vincent got into their taxi to the station in the evening of the second day. And I thought, if only all musicians were so headstrong, so independent.