Linking the ancient and the modern across time and space, the Sokratis Votskos Quartet presents Sketching the Unknown – a modern jazz journey into the folk and modal music of ancient Greece.

Playing rich original compositions, the Quartet draw freely on Greek and Balkan folk sources, jazz idioms, and the classical makams of the near East. Returning to ancient Greek modes such as Dorian, Phrygian and Lydian, a fresh perspective is brought to the modal style that was popularised by Miles Davis, John Coltrane and Herbie Hancock. Expertly versed in musical theory, the pioneering jazz players that adapted these modes for the new jazz of the late 1950s and 1960s worked in full knowledge of their ancient Greek historical origins. The musical freedom offered by these ancient scales helped them take their music to a higher level as they laid the groundwork for the spiritual moment in jazz.

On Sketching the Unknown, the Sokratis Votskos Quartet brings that process full circle, linking today’s jazz back to the ancient modes and microtonal folk music of Greece and the Near East. Deep modal jazz sounds from an ancient source!