Sunland Olivier Le Goas, Kristjan Randalu, Lukas Traxel

• 1Good to Be Back (Vivaldi.21)06:59
• 2Morning Light08:34
• 3E. Song05:14
• 4Cross the Undangered Spaces (Us)07:26
• 5Sunland06:38
• 6Surface04:37
• 7Song in a Song05:29
• 8Mirage04:31
• 9Life on Mars / Book of Dreams07:28
• 10Residual Time05:16
• 11Survivor's Song06:18
• 12Key Song04:20
• Total Runtime01:12:50

Info for Sunland

The French drummer Olivier le Goas is one of the busiest musicians in his country. He has had his own bands for 35 years, and at the same time he has played with pianist Bojan Zulfikarpasic, the big band of pianist Laurent Cogny, bassist Jean-François Jenny-Clark, pianists Benoit Delbecq and Jean-Michel Pilc, trumpeters Kenny Wheeler, Avishai Cohen and Charles Tolliver, and guitarist Ben Monder. His own bands have been filled with such illustrious musicians as John Abercrombie, Ralph Alessi, Drew Gress, Manu Codjia, Nir Felder, Kevin Hays, John Escreet and Larry Grenadier. He is now presenting a new trio on "Sunland", which includes bassist Lukas Traxel and pianist Kristjan Randalu.

"The album should have been recorded years ago, but the coronavirus pandemic threw a wrench in our plans," le Goas sighed. In May 2023, the three musicians finally went to the legendary Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg to record twelve songs that the drummer composed especially for this line-up. Tricky meters ("Good to be Back", "Life on Mars/Book of Dreams", "Mirage") play just as important a role as songs inspired by folk songs ("E. Song", "Key Song") and multithematic songs ("A Song in a Song", "Morning Light", "Cross the Undangered Species").

"The 'Key Song‘ was inspired by Keith Jarrett's folksy compositions," le Goas explained. “Both melodies work like question and answer. This structure enables a very centered sound, in which the piano solo conveys a completely different impression." The Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu – winner of the solo piano competition of the Montreux Jazz Festival 2002 – knows how to take advantage of such an opportunity.

"Residual Time" uses principles developed by Arnold Schönberg to create a fluid theme, in which the melody and the bass react to each other. "I regularly went to the New York Public Library during my time in New York twenty years ago," le Goas said. "I discovered Arnold Schönberg's unprecedented 'Structural Functions of Harmony‘ there. The second chapter ‘Principles of Harmony’ is mainly about progressions in the bass line. The idea of removing the bass line from the accompaniment function and composing a second melody for the bass was like an enlightenment for me."

But sometimes the drummer gets inspired as if out of nowhere. “One morning I woke up with a tune in my head,” he recalled. "This resulted in 'Surface' with its many reharmonizations. Similar to Pat Metheny's 'Lakes‘, I composed the piece as an exercise in which the melodic motif is changed again and again, both in terms of its length and key. My goal was to compose a piece that has a certain freshness from beginning to end."

On the other hand, the lively and rhythmically extremely tricky opener "Good to be Back" is based on a classic motif. “The song was directly inspired by the first movement of Vivaldi's 'Concerto for two violins in A minor‘,” le Goas stated. "The concert is full of energy. My theme spans a sequence of complex meters, including a 21/8 beat, while the bass follows its own rhythmic line, which is also constantly changing.”

Olivier le Goas could talk about every song in this way – and does so in the album's liner notes – but the beauty of his trio's music is that you can enjoy it without any explanation. The vitality of the three musicians – Lukas Traxel has so far been heard primarily in the trio of pianist Marie Krüttli, but also recorded his first own album with Otis Sandsjö and Moritz Baumgärtner last year – makes "Sunland" not only a sunny affair, but also makes the three-man band a trio of a special European class.

Kristjan Randalu, piano
Olivier Le Goas, drums
Lukas Traxel, double bass

Olivier Le Goas
After obtaining a 1st Price DANTE AGOSTINI Drum School (Teachers Nadia TOUCHE, Gille TOUCHE, Jacques- François JUSKOWIAK) in PARIS in 1987, OLIVIER Le GOAS began to play in trio with guitarist ERIC LOHRER, and bassist LAURENT CAMUZAT, with whom he won the 2nd price of orchestra at the 1988 DEFENSE Jazz Competition, toured intensely, and recorded two albums (Eric LOHRER trio, DANS LE BLEU). Paralelly he play, and tour with among others, the piano player Bojan ZULFIKARPASIC, the Big Band «Lumière» of the piano player, composer, and arranger LAURENT CUGNY, the doublebass player JEAN-FRANCOIS JENNY-CLARK,the vibes player David PATROIS, the piano player BENOIT DELBECQ, then joined the group MAHORI featuring the guitar player DAVID CHEVALLIER, and quintet of piano player Jean-Michel PILC. In 1995, he participated in the Jazz Workshop at the Banff Center (CANADA), where he met the Canadien English Resident bugle, trumpet player, and composer KENNY WHEELER with whom he recorded in LONDON UK14 years later the album SUR LES CORPS DES KLAXONS published on his own label REWIND RECORD ( RR1001). In 2003 he was awarded a LAVOISIER scholarship for French Students Abroad (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs / EGIDE), and went to study in NEW YORK CITY U.S.A in the departement of jazz and contemporary music program at New School University (2003 ), where he follows the teachings among others of the trumpet player Charles TOLLIVER, the piano player Peter ZAK, the guitar player Rory STUART, the composer Kurt NUROK, the drummers Jeff BALLARD and Eric McPHERSON. During his stay he plays among others with Ben MONDER, Jason LINDER, Avishai COHEN (trp), Jacques SCHWARTZ-BART, Tim LEFEVRE

Over the past fifteen years, OLIVIER Le GOAS has released six albums as a leader. First album recorded with the guitar player JOHN ABERCROMBIE, the trumpet player RALPH ALESSI and the bass player DREW GRESS at the famous CLINTON RECORDING STUDIO in NEW YORK CITY U.S.A, GRAVITATIONS was released in 2007 on the Swiss record label ALTRISUONI (AS204); released on the same label (AS260) in 2009, TRILOG Seven Ways, is a trio project recorded in Paris with ther guitar player MANU CODJIA and the saxophone player VINCENT MASCART; In 2009 Olivier Le GOAS created his own record label REWIND RECORD on which will appear successively in 2010 and 2013, SUR LES CORPS DES KLAXONS (RR1001) recorded in quartet with KENNY WHEELER, and ABSTRACT (RR1002) a project recorded in septet in PARIS FR with among others David CHEVALLIER and the saxophone player Alban DARCHE.

Composing a new repertoire, Olivier brought the guitar player NIR FELDER, the piano player KEVIN HAYS and the doublebass player PHIL DONKIN to the legendary BAUER STUDIOS - LUDWIGSBURG GERMANY in October 2015. Includes 8 new original strongs compositions, presenting polyrhythmic structures of basic metric forms developed, full of contrasts, proposing offers melodic and a lyric repertory, RECIPROCITY, was released on September 2, 2016 on German Record Label NEUKLANG (NCD4139). NEUKLANG will also be releasing THE GRAVITATIONS SESSION PART.II including 6 unfulfilled tracks from the GRAVITATIONS session in December 2017.

After having made a promotional tour with RECIPROCITY feat. Nir FELDER, John ESCREET and the polish doublebass player Max MUCHA presenting his own music in Europe in May 2017, OLIVIER Le GOAS presents ON RAMP of HEAVEN DREAMS his new album recorded in 2019 in NYC U.S.A with Nir FELDER, John ESCREET and the doublebass player Larry GRENADIER, and released on CHALLENGE RECORD INT. in January 2020.

Kristjan Randalu
Estonian pianist Kristjan Randalu makes his ECM debut with a striking album of his own rigorous-yet-lyrical music, sensitively played by a group formed especially for this recording, with US guitarist Ben Monder and Finnish drummer Markku Ounaskari. The trio line-up was suggested by producer Manfred Eicher after hearing Randalu’s 2012 duo recording with Monder, Equilibrium.The featured compositions on Absence are robust, and in the past Randalu has played them also as solo piano pieces. In this session recorded in Pernes-les-Fontaines in the south of France, their structures are prised open. Guitar and drums subtly illuminate the pieces from inside, casting light on their originality. Among other attributes, Monder and Ounaskari are outstanding colourists and textural players, and they bring out much of the fine detail implied in Randalu’s writing with inspired improvising.

Like much good music, Randalu’s resists capsule summary. Markku Ounaskari has observed that “Kristjan’s music is really a world of its own.” As an improviser of prodigious technique, once described by Herbie Hancock as “a dazzling piano player”, Randalu’s affinities are with the jazz musicians, but the forms and dynamics of his pieces also reflect a discerning structural sense, and he has cited composers Erkki-Sven Tüür and Tõnu Kõrvits among his mentors. Kristjan Randalu’s capacity to move between genres and disciplines is rare: his itinerary in recent months, for instance, has found him premiering new music of his own with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra, performing Arvo Pärt’s Credo with Kristjan Järvi and the Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and also playing duets with Dave Liebman. There are not many contemporary players with this kind of range.

Born into a musical family in Estonia in 1978, Randalu grew up in Germany. Both his parents are professional classical pianists, and all of his early music training was purely classical. Hearing Chick Corea’s Inside Out at the age of 13 changed some of his priorities: “It seemed to me so perfect that I thought at first that it must be all notated. And it had all this rhythmic energy, and sound-wise, harmonically and colour-wise was very interesting to me. At that point I had almost no historical jazz references at all - no early Miles, even, no Coltrane – I would learn about all of that later. But I felt motivated to create my own music with piano and synthesizer and sequencer and soon had my first band. By this point I had already been performing classical music for years and was playing at a serious level, but there was a gap between practicing my Liszt and Chopin and beginning to deal actively with jazz…” The gap was bridged in the following years by studies with a number of notable pianists, including John Taylor and Django Bates. A scholarship to the Manhattan School of Music allowed plenty of opportunities to hear New York’s improvisers at first hand, Ben Monder amongst them.

“Later it happened on a couple of occasions that our groups – Ben’s group and my group -- played one after the other at festivals in Germany and we talked several times about doing something together. But it didn’t happen until a festival organizer in Estonia proposed a duo concert….” Markku Ounaskari and Kristjan Randalu first played opposite each other in a concert series organized by German radio station NDR. Ounaskari was then playing with the second edition of his Kuára group with Trygve Seim on saxes. When Seim formed his Helsinki Songs project a couple of years later, he invited both Ounaskari and Randalu to be part of it (an ECM album with Seim, Randalu, Ounaskari and Mats Eilertsen is in preparation).

Ounaskari has played with all the major Finnish jazz players and with many international jazz musicians including Lee Konitz, Kenny Wheeler, Tomasz Stanko and Marc Ducret. In addition to his Kuára recording with Samuli Mikkonen and Per Jørgensen, exploring Russian psalms and Fenno-Ugrian folk songs in an improvisational context, Markku Ounaskari appears on several ECM recordings with folk singer and kantele player Sinikka Langeland, including Starflowers, The Land That Is Not, The Half-Finished Heaven and The Magical Forest. A musician in the New York City area for over 30 years, Ben Monder has performed with a wide variety of artists, including Jack McDuff, Marc Johnson, Lee Konitz, Billy Childs, Andrew Cyrille, George Garzone, Paul Motian, Maria Schneider, and Marshall Crenshaw. He also contributed guitar parts to the final David Bowie album, Blackstar. In addition to his own ECM album Amorphae, with Paul Motian, Andrew Cyrille and Pete Rende, Monder appears on Theo Bleckmann’s Elegy and Paul Motian’s Garden of Eden. Downbeat "The bandleader is a pillar of stability. He clearly is capable of breathtaking displays of technique and showmanship, but employs challenging runs with a noble conservatism."

All About Jazz "Absence, Randalu's ECM debut, ricochets its motifs and dark, rhythmic overtones with a singular sense of structure and improvisation."

The Herald "Randalu’s always melodic, ever exploring style is a delight"

Lukas Traxel
is one of the most sought-after jazz bassists in Europe. Born in the Swiss Alps, his playing is as grounded as the mountains he grew up among, and at the same time flowing and rushing like the river that makes its way through the valley. Or as Mirko Weber put it in the Stuttgarter Zeitung: "Spirit plus skill plus energy for two".

These attributes have led to his regularly appearing on stage with musicians such as Kurt Rosenwinkel, Lionel Loueke, Ralph Alessi, Uri Caine, Dejan Terzic, Nils Wogram, Florian Weber or Elina Duni in recent years.

His discography now includes over three dozen releases as a sideman.

Lukas Traxel also performs regularly solo and his trio with the two exceptional musicians Otis Sandsjö (Sweden/Saxophone) and Moritz Baumgärtner (Germany/Drums) will release his debut album "One-Eyed Daruma" on the renowned label "Wejazz" in spring 2023.

This album contains no booklet.