With You Martin Sasse & Gerd Dudek

• 1Green Table Speech08:39
• 2Lover Man09:53
• 3Blues for G.D.09:23
• 4De Vita08:47
• 5Naima09:27
• 6With You07:35
• Total Runtime53:44

Info for With You

Among the best Hollywood directors for all eternity is Howard Hawks, who is praised as a "professional" because he knew how to narrate particularly efficiently, energetic, fast-paced, always entertaining. Such a "seasoned" professional was also the saxophonist Gerd Dudek (1938-2022). The straightforwardness and efficiency of his playing are also admirable; he too searched for the best form in each case and found it in the greatest possible simplicity of his complex, musical means.

Another association suggests itself: As in Hawks' films, there is always plenty of room in Dudek's playing for narrated sensuality, even for a pronounced tenderness - but never for sadness or sentimentality. In all this, Dudek's playing comes from a world of (musical) action that has become old-fashioned, where like-minded people meet as equals in friendship and solidarity.

Gerd Dudek's voice was the saxophone. Primarily on the tenor saxophone, no less sonorous and expressive on the soprano saxophone (and occasionally on the flute), he found his language, which was authentic and binding in all stylistic varieties. There could not have been a better title for the album of the quartet Gerd Dudek 4 in 2016: "Out Of This World". Together with Martin Sasse, Martin Gjakonovski and Hendrik Smock, Gerd Dudek celebrated the melodic beauty of John Coltrane on it, only to play primarily like him: Gerd Dudek.

The fact that there is now a kind of sequel to this masterful album is wonderful news and an extraordinary stroke of luck. The tracks for the album "With You" were recorded only shortly before Dudek's death on 3 November 2022 (now with Joost van Schaik on drums) and bear witness in all their splendour to Dudek's unadulterated joy in playing and his unlimited musical competence. The fact that it is now being released posthumously is a circumstance that is as sad as it is comforting: once again, one experiences Gerd Dudek at his deeply introspective playing, as authentic as it is authoritative, as sincere as it is empathetic.

The album contains six titles, and once again John Coltrane plays an important role. Not only is there a masterful presentation of Coltrane's classic ballad "Naima": "With You" is an individual and at the same time collective album in the spirit of Coltrane, testimony to musical power and warmth. It is no coincidence that it begins with one of Dudek's few original compositions. The vital opener "Green Table Speech" takes a wide swing with a hymn-like gesture and then elegantly changes to a spirited theme, which serves all the quartet members as a springboard for extensive solo contributions. The fabulous technique and musicality of the wonderfully well-rehearsed quartet also reveal themselves "in between", in the collective interactions.

The first ballad of the album follows with "Lover Man". The famous standard, once written for Billie Holiday, mirrors in a certain sense the opener in poetic-lyrical interpretation, adorned with extensive solo passages. Dudek shows himself daring and yet adventurous in his quiet way, Martin Sasse's exuberant playing makes you want to listen on endlessly before it is replaced by a fine, singing bass solo by Martin Gjakonovski, sensitively underpinned by Sasse. With "Blues for G.D." follows the first of two brilliant Martin Sasse compositions, melodically so delicately conceived that one would spontaneously like to add them to a "Sasse songbook". Compositionally no less impressive Ali Haurand's "De Vita", thoroughly "European", albeit with a touch of "Fly Me To The Moon" in the theme. Dudek played the piece with Haurand and Jiri Stivin in the European Jazz Trio, now he shapes it into an inspiring, earthy solo, through which Sasse is inspired sometimes "Monkesk", sometimes bluesy swinging, to once again pass the baton to Gjakonovski.

And then: "Naima". There is the oft-quoted diary entry by Franz Kafka, "Been to the cinema. Cried." You just have to change the first sentence to "Heard Naima" to say everything about it. What Gerd Dudek has to tell on the soprano saxophone is almost epic and yet always lovingly and devotedly committed to the beauty of the melody, free and relaxed, intimate, touchingly sincere. How can one continue after that? Martin Sasse's "With You" evokes associations with Coltrane's "Resolution", whose hymnal emphasis flows into soloistically and collectively inspiring interactions. Driven by Joost van Schaik's precise drumming, all participants toss the balls to each other, Dudek lingers briefly on "Softly As In A Morning Sunrise", but it really doesn't become "softly", rather the energy ignited sonically is concentrated once more.

And so ends the album "With You", in which Gerd Dudek, Martin Sasse, Martin Gjakonovski and Joost van Schaik are once again "with each other" and yet above all also "with him", with Gerd Dudek. The standard "Lover Man" originally had a subtitle: "Oh, Where Can You Be?" The question may be meant rhetorically and perhaps needs no answer at all, and yet: Gerd Dudek is here - in the music of this album.

Gerd Dudek, tenor saxophone
Martin Sasse, piano
Martin Gjakonovski, bass
Joost van Schaik, drums

Recorded and mixed by Reinhard Kobialka at Topaz Studio Köln (December 20th, 2021)
Mastered by Thomas Ölscher at Railroad Tracks Studios, Kerpen
Produced by Jens Bosch & Martin Sasse

Gerd Dudek
was born in 1938 in Groß Döbbern, in what is now Poland. He plays tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone and clarinet.

After his studies, he first played in the Kurt Edelhagen Big Band from 1960 - 64 before becoming a member of the Manfred Schoof Quintet, at that time with Alexander von Schlippenbach and Buschi Niebergall.

As a member of Albert Mangelsdorff's quartet and the German All Stars, he toured Asia and South America. Gerd Dudek is one of the co-founders of the European Jazz Quintet/ Ensemble and the European Jazz Trio with Jiri Stivin and Ali Haurand. He is still a member of Alexander von Schlippenbach's Contemporary Orchestra and the "Globe Unity". He toured in the 1960s with Don Cherry and Georg Russel. With his quartet he toured Canada, Australia and another 25 European countries. Together with Wolfgang Lackerschmid, Manfred Schoof and Ryan Carniaux, he also plays regularly in the band TTT of the "Painter Prince" and pianist Markus Lüpertz.

Martin Sasse
In the course of his stage career Martin Sasse has worked with nearly all legends in the international jazz scene and Sasse himself ranks as one of the most outstanding jazz pianists in Europe. He has released ten albums under his own name and plays as a guest on countless recordings and at concerts worldwide. Jazz legends have influenced him, including Al Foster, Jimmy Cobb, Steve Grossman and Lee Konitz. For Billy Cobham and Hiram Bullock he switched from the piano to the hammond B3 and presents himself as an outstanding organist.

Sasse played tours with the New York Voices, Dusko Gojkovich, Al Foster, Rick Margitza or Dick Oatts and was pianist in Till Brönner's series "Talking Jazz" at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn. He accompanied great singers like Roberta Gambarini, Tierney Sutton, Janis Siegel (Manhattan Transfer) and Bobby McFerrin. His regular partners include Philip Catherine, Peter Bernstein, Dennis Mackrel and Scott Hamilton.

The Martin Sasse Trio has existed in changing formations for almost thirty years. Even their first album "Here we come" (2000) received best international reviews. Later albums include Vincent Herring, the Miles Davis saxophonist Steve Grossmann and the guitarist Peter Bernstein. For the album "Good Times" with Charlie Mariano, the trio received the famous German Record Critics' Award in 2010.

Martin Sasse has also accompanied world stars from pop and classical music, including Bobby McFerrin, Tommy Emmanuel and Chris de Burgh. He was on stage with Jose Carreras, Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo and played the European tour "Symphonicity" with Sting and the Bochumer Symphonic Orchestra. Helge Schneider, Udo Jürgens and Udo Lindenberg, some of the greatest German speaking entertainers, also belong to Sasse's musician partners.

The highly acclaimed film "Blue", which premiered at the "Jazzahead" in Bremen, accompanied Sasse's concerts for more than two years, among others at the legendary jazz club "Smalls" in New York and in the famous Annex Sound Studio in Tokyo. His concert tours have led Martin Sasse through Europe and the USA, to Japan and China, to Egypt and the Sudan. He teaches at the Institute for Media and Music at the Robert Schumann University Düsseldorf.

This album contains no booklet.