"Life never goes in a straight line. Our world is full of surprises. Things we have known forever can change before our very eyes. So the challenge is to keep level-headed, to ensure that our lives stay in balance on the personal, the social and the political level.” ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
An album reflecting on solitude. The new Solo Piano presents music of Alban Berg, Rudolf Hindemith, Sufjan Stevens, Tori Amos, Timbe Timbre and compositions by the artist himself. Wollny's masterstroke has been to create a highly individual world, a truly personal dialogue with these extremely ...
Genre: Instrumental
Subgenre: Piano
“Europe is different, every country is different,” says violinist Adam Bałdych, “but music is a language which can bring us together, to one place.” He, Dutch pianist Rogier Telderman and French cellist Vincent Courtois combine and juxtapose their different sounds and heritages. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
“This album marks a new phase,” says Marius Neset. “It was the last thing I did in Copenhagen, which has been my life for the past seventeen years.” In late 2019 the saxophonist and composer moved from the Danish capital to return to his native Norway. In “Tributes”, recorded shortly before he left, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Big Band
Another Beatles album?! When Swedish guitarist Ulf Wakenius initially proposed the idea of recording a homage to Paul McCartney, Siggi Loch was highly sceptical. After all, it is not as if there is a shortage of versions of The Beatles' ageless tunes. However, it soon not only became clear ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Abrazo. Embrace. A close dance perhaps, but also with the hint of a friendly tussle. Could there be a more fitting metaphor for the duo of accordionist Vincent Peirani and soprano saxophonist Émile Parisien? "It's like a marriage," says Peirani. "In the beginning everything’s just great, wonderful, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
At the beginning of the 2000s, Norwegian singer Solveig Slettahjell and her Slow Motion Quintet made the European jazz scene really sit up and take notice. Her concept, as Canadian critic John Kelman has written, was to take songs from the American songbook and to “slow them down. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic X: East - West
‘East meets West’ was the central theme in the life of Nesuhi Ertegün (1917-1989). He grew up as the son of the Turkish Ambassador in Washington, and Nesuhi himself was to become an ambassador too: one of the most important producers and advocates that jazz has ever had. On the 30th anniversary of his death, ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
Harmonica virtuoso Gregoire Maret and acclaimed pianist Romain Collin team up to paint an egalitarian vision of the American Dream, exploring the varied roots of American music alongside guitar visionary Bill Frisell. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
The audience at the Biberach Jazz Prize a couple of years ago witnessed a miracle. Here was an alto saxophonist who instantly evoked memories of some of the very greats of the instrument: a player with the melodic invention of a Johnny Hodges, the big sound of an Eric Dolphy, the urgency ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Modern Jazz
The Süddeutsche Zeitung hailed Johanna Summer's performance at the Young Munich Jazz Prize in 2018 as "a small sensation": for just under an hour, the pianist, born in Plauen in Saxony in 1995 and now living in Berlin, had encompassed a whole gamut from enjoying the harmonic and rhythmic ...
Genre: Instrumental
Subgenre: Piano
Ihr vor zwei Jahren erschienenes, schlicht mit ihrem Namen betiteltes ACT-Debütalbum bezeichnete Laila Biali als ihr erstes, das sie „voll repräsentiert“. Hier tritt eine markante, vielseitige Songwriting-Persönlichkeit zutage, die sich nicht in eine Schublade zwängen lässt und ihren Jazz ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
“This isn’t about reproducing an original, it’s much more like a translation. When I absorb and adapt influences and when I write, I follow my own path – and that allows me to be myself. It’s a process from which something new and contemporary can emerge.” This is how Wolfgang Haffner describes the artistic approach ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
The small Baltic nation of Estonia is internationally renowned for its singing traditions. Though originally a defiant celebration of its own identity in the face of past adversity, it’s also a reflection of a country that’s been looking to the future with a new freewheeling assertiveness. ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
Andreas Schaerer’s recent projects have established him at the forefront of the creative jazz scene in Europe. The Berne-based artist’s debut on the label, the revolutionary orchestral work "The Big Wig", a commission from the Lucerne Festival, was followed by a quartet formation with Michael Wollny, Vincent ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Contemporary Jazz
Only very few musicians are as well versed in both, classical music and jazz as the Finnish pianist Iiro Rantala. With the acclaimed 'Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen', he now continues his classical journey. Following the album "Mozart, Bernstein, Lennon" which got nominated for ...
Composer: George Gershwin (1989-1937)
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
You can already hear the first notes of 'Speaking Sound': With German piano great Joachim Kühn and Mateusz Smoczyński, the violinist of the highly acclaimed Polish "Atom String Quartet", two musicians have come together who, without many words, click in a real magical way and inspire each ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Crossover Jazz
Trance, ritual, mysticism, psychedelia, magic...however one chooses to describe the way that North-African 'gnawa' music affects people, there can be no denying the fascination for it which reaches right across the world. Morrocan gimbri-player and singer Majid Bekkas is one of it's most dazzling ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Mainstream Jazz
The new album by vocalist Viktoria Tolstoy is a reflection of her very own understanding of jazz - with pieces by Swedish composers on the one hand, and of American jazz and song greats on the other. The piano seat of her new band is now, after Esbjörn Svensson and Jacob Karlzon, manned by ...
Genre: Jazz
Subgenre: Vocal
