Living Being II (Night Walker)
Vincent Peirani is a jazz musician who is equally at home in world music, or classical music, chanson or pop. Yet what the listener will hear from his new album is that he has transformed the accordion into the baddest of rock 'n' roll axes. On “Night Walker” the ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
"Vertical lift-off" was how broadcaster NDR described Jin Jim’s rise on the German jazz scene. These words are justified, if one considers the relatively short backstory which now culminates in their ACT debut album “Weiße Schatten” (White Shadows). ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
Parisien’s “Sfumato” concert at Jazz in Marciac on 8 August 2017 was unforgettable and has been captured for ever on HighResAudio. His quintet was augmented at this concert by illustrious guests: US trumpet star Wynton Marsalis, French jazz legend Michel Portal and Parisien’s ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Austrian pianist David Helbock has been called “a consistent trail-blazer” and “a gifted story-teller at the piano” (quote from 3sat Kulturzeit). In his ACT debut album “Into the Mystic” (2016), he left his personal and individual imprint on well-known compositions from Beethoven to Thelonious Monk ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
"Scarborough Variations" is the title of a work available for some time now in various versions and recordings. With this album it can now finally be heard on its own. "Scarborough Variations" is also the title of the whole disc. As with "Aeolian Green", these are recordings which radiate their magical effects ...
Genre: Instrumental
Subgenre: Piano
The release of this album marks a poignant moment: the tenth anniversary of the tragic and premature death of Esbjorn Svensson on 14 June 2008. It was recorded at a completely sold-out Barbican Centre in 2005, during a hugely successful and highly popular UK tour. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Avantgarde Jazz
Mozart, Bernstein, Lennon (Live)
Long before he had heard the whole of Mozart’s C Major Piano Concerto, Finnish jazz pianist Iiro Rantala had known the andante. “The second movement,” he explains, “is on the soundtrack to the James Bond Film ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’. It’s the scene where they show ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
“Wartburg” fizzes and shimmers with all the acuity of Michael Wollny's senses and his protean capacity to be alive to the possibilities and the magic of the moment. This is improvising at the limit, life seen through a dream. The album also documents a first-ever encounter of his ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
"Oslo" is about Michael Wollny the masterful auteur of compelling movies, dense narratives, dazzling paintings in sound which occupy the ever-shifting ground between jazz, classical and new music. His award-winning trio receives a whole new sound palette courtesy of the miraculous free improvisers of the Norwegian Wind Ensemble. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
Dreams are dreams – but this thing really happened. The violin and the tuba could not be more different as instruments, but the biographies of Benjamin Schmid and Andreas Martin Hofmeir have some similarities: both have been award-winners at the ECHO Classics (Hofmeir was the first tuba player ever to win one); ...
Composer: Georg Breinschmid, Jörg Duda, Florian Willeitner, Henryk Wieniawski, Christof Dienz, Johan Halvorsen (1964-1935), Jan Koetsier, João Bosco, Antonio Bazzini
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
Janne Mark writes hymns. And yet there is nothing about her that is stuck in a fusty tradition. She writes in the here and now, she is socially aware and committed, and in her work she draws on the freedom of jazz and all of the breadth of the Scandinavian folk tradition. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
Most jazz musicians are also travellers. Their places of work are the clubs and festivals of the world, so they are always on the go. Echoes of Swing, however, has another dimension: This quartet is also on a journey through time, going back to classic jazz from the 20’s to the 50’s, bringing ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
After his gargantuan orchestral work “The Big Wig” and the improvisational fireworks of “Out of Land” (with Emile Parisien, Vincent Peirani and Michael Wollny) Andreas Schaerer has now immersed himself in a new sound-world. “A Novel Of Anomaly” presents eleven short stories, ....
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
„She is an exciting and unique talent and I admire her greatly“ Sting. The singer-pianist has won several prizes, and not only in her native country. DOWNBEAT magazine included her music in its albums of the year. Her sixth album – which is also her ACT debut, represents the culmination of everything she has done until now. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
His gaze is directed to the future, he has the history of jazz behind him, and he never kow-tows to convention. This piano genius loves freedom and fantasy, driven by the imperative to keep discovering the new. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Paier and Valcic’s music is always sensual and rich in images, and this opulence of colours and pictures is also at the heart of what “Cinema Scenes” is about: they let their impressions of films flow freely as music, but above all the two musicians give expression ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
It was the awakening (Despertando) of a tinge of longing which inspired Diego Pinera to record this album. More than seventeen years after having left his native Uruguay, he re-visits his roots, the influences which first left their mark on him, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
Piano Night (Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic VII - Live)
“Three men, three pianos, one emotion – jazz”. These were the words with which German national TV news succinctly summed up the piano summit on 31st May 2016 in a sold-out main hall of the Berlin Philharmonie. And the TV news reporter continued: “Iiro Rantala, Leszek Możdżer, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
The 32-year-old Bergen-born saxophonist-composer Marius Neset has been at the height of his creative powers, especially on the evidence of a trio of consecutive albums released since 2014 on ACT, one of Europe’s leading jazz recording labels. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
In a period in which the boundaries between musical genres are rapidly dissolving, there still exist major differences between what we still call a “jazz” band and those of other musical classifications.Perhaps the most significant of these is that longevity in a ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Classical Crossover
