Stax

Various Artists - Magic Moments 12CD / digitalOne World Of Music. The ACT label has jazz at its core, and an openness to all kinds of musical directions: pop, rock, the music of singer-songwriters and traditional folkloric forms such as flamenco and tango. These very different genres nonetheless never fail to find new and magical ways to work together. The twelfth Magic Moments compilation presents exciting music "in the Spirit of Jazz". All kinds of pleasure await the listener during its 71 minutes. And what can one expect to hear in this world so far away from a single predetermined style? There are surprises, obviously. Plus several chances to reconnect with established and familiar stars. And discoveries of some genuinely exciting newcomers. The opening track is from Iiro Rantala on solo piano. His portrait of the month of "August" is from "My Finnish Calendar", an album which sets to music the course of an entire year in his home country from a very personal point of view. Argentinian tango is a prime example of a musical tradition which is not just lively but is also constantly developing. The Javier Girotto Trio proves the point in "Deus Xango" from "Tango Nuevo Revisited", a contemporary reimagining of the Piazzolla/Mulligan classic album from 1975. "Four top-league jazz musicians who just enjoy playing". That description by the TV programme ZDF today Journal) defines exactly what "4WD" is all about. The four bandleaders involved are Nils Landgren, Mi-chael Wollny, Lars Danielsson and Wolfgang Haffner). Each of them is in equal control and they all set the direction of the group. "Flamenco and jazz are brothers," says Spanish piano newcomer Daniel García. In his energetic trio with special guest Jorge Pardo, he shows just how true that statement is with the fiery "Travesuras". French accordionist Vincent Peirani and his wife Serena Fisseau then create a familiar musical refuge: "What A Wonderful World" is a paean to silence. A duo of newcomers to the label, Grégoire Maret and Edmar Castaneda create new and exciting sound worlds. In "Harp vs. Harp" harmonica meets harp. This is indeed a special and rare pairing; "Blueserinho" absolutely needs to be heard. With his "Italian Songbook" trumpeter Luca Aquino has recorded a homage to the music of his homeland. Here is "Scalinatella" by film composer Giuseppe Cioffi in an affecting version for trio with the Italian piano star Danilo Rea and accordionist Natalino Marchetti. Singer Cæcilie Norby unites musicians from several generations and countries on "Sisters in Jazz". Her composition "Naked In The Dark" demonstrates that jazz is far from being only about men. "Klinken" comes from the debut album "Stax" by the 25-year-old drummer Max Stadtfeld, a release in the Young German Jazz series. Stadtfeld and his comrades-in-arms have no truck with intellectuality, they move in the rhythm-oriented mainstream and yet point beyond it. With freshness and astonishing maturity this quartet thrills and excites. For over 10 years the successful trio Mare Nostrum with Paolo Fresu, Richard Galliano and Jan Lundgren has been the epitome of the sound of Europe. All three musi-cians have a quite fabulous sense of the lyrical and poetic which is again very much to the fore in their third album; Magic Moments 12 has the Swedish "Ronneby". As the magazine Galore writes of German jazz icon Joachim Kühn. “He interprets Ornette Coleman's music in his very own way: lyrically, gently and introvertedly, but full of surprising details." Kühn relives the unique story of his work alongside one of the legends of jazz here with "Lost Thoughts", a piece never recorded before. On 6 February 2019, jazz baroness Pannonica (Nica) de Koenigswarter (1913-1988) received a posthumous tribute for her tireless commitment to jazz in a concert at the Philharmonie in Berlin. The focus was on pieces by musicians whom Pannonica had supported over so many years with money, accommodation, advice and friendship, and who often dedicated compositions to her in gratitude, "Little Butterly" by Thelonious Monk for example. The New York singer Charenée Wade is in the limelight here, accompanied by Iiro Rantala, Dan Berglund and Anton Eger, with the American saxophone titan Ernie Watts. "An Israeli power trio. Heavy Jazz," Rolling Stone wrote of Shalosh. And when you hear the frenzied "After The War" it is obvious why: rock and indie jazz combine to form a mix which is full of tension and excitement. Violinist Adam Baldych is a supremely talented virtuoso. Stereo Magazine has described him as "one of the most technically brilliant interpreters of improvised music". "Longing" from his album "Sacrum Profanum" is a searingly sad ballad, sensitively interpreted in a duo with pianist Krzysztof Dys. On "Painted Music" the pianist Carsten Dahl gives his own highly personal take on classics of the jazz repertoire. The traditional Danish folk song "Jeg gik mig ud en sommerdag" (I went out on a summer’s day) is the sound of summer. At the end of “Magic Moments 12”, Nguyên Lê's piece "Hippocampus" reminds us of "One World Of Music", the theme of the compilation. The French guitarist of Vietnamese ancestry is a musical wayfarer between cultures who combines the freedom of jazz with influences from rock and world music.Credits: Compilation by Siggi Loch Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann

Max Stadtfeld - StaxCD / digital Max Stadtfeld drums Matthew Halpin tenor saxophone Bertram Burkert guitar Reza Askari double bass Schools are such special places. Through providing the setting for encounters with great teachers, through developing a sense of the cohort, these venerable institutions can, when things go right, awaken a drive and an appetite for what comes next. The Leipzig University of Music and Drama is a case in point. It was where Max Stadtfeld studied, under teachers including Heinrich Köbberling and Michael Wollny. At the beginning of 2019, Wollny chose the 25-year-old drummer for his BAU.HAUS.KLANG quintet with Emile Parisien, Leafcutter John and Wolfgang Heisig. This experience wasn't just the continuation of the teacher-student relationship, because Leipzig offers other opportunities too: several clubs and other venues where someone like Max Stadtfeld could go and really free up his playing and become part of a community. It is important that young jazz musicians can apply what they have learned. They need to get out and find their own stories because jazz itself lives through the selves of its protagonists. Only then can it become authentic and be a reflection of the world beyond. That is what is needed for the chain reaction to begin. "Music compresses impressions," says Max Stadtfeld. When he talks, his lust for life is palpable; and even more so when he plays. "Rhythm fascinates me," he says. And he does indeed feed his own rhythmic impetus and energy into his band, enabling the soloists to rise up off it. He occupies just the space he finds necessary. It's about becoming empowered in the moment by doing the right thing. That sometimes means being able to step back and restrict oneself to just details, nuances and delicate tracery. One must not be too preoccupied with oneself, because then one loses the wood for the trees. The real fun begins when you can leave caution and over-discipline behind, ideally taking the whole band with you. Stax (pronounced schtaks, a free-form short version of the name of Max Stadtfeld), is an ideal band for such departures. The quartet found each other on the Leipzig-Cologne axis, and there was an inevitability about the way it all happened. That much was clear from the get-go a year or two ago. They met, rehearsed, played, they did a few concerts – and things just clicked, above all on the interpersonal level. And you can hear it. Guitarist Bertram Burkert's playing had fascinated Max Stadtfeld right from the start, because Burkert was fully-formed as a player incredibly early, with a capacity to add tiny subtleties and a certain abrasiveness. In the context of the current guitar renaissance, he is a genuine discovery. Burkert inhaled his John Scofield, but what he exhales is something different: he creates wonderful long curlicues. And the way in which these extended phrases intertwine with those of Matthew Halpin is simply a feast for the ears. Halpin, an Irishman now based in Cologne, studied at Berklee. He is a talented, rhapsodical tenor saxophone player with a many-faceted sound which he always makes new and interesting, because of the way he feels the music and doesn't over-aggress. Old-school jazz, with all that need to play higher, or faster or with a sound as fat as possible is not his thing at all. As a genuine storyteller he can illuminate the background with emotion or shore it up with maturity, and those abilities turn his dialogues with the guitarist into tours de force which end up in new, unexpected and emotional places. Stax assigns the traditional role to the double bass, which makes Reza Askari the ideal bass player. He studied with Dieter Manderscheid and Sebastian Gramss in Cologne, toured with Lee Konitz, and has amassed a not inconsiderable discography. He provides a solid, deep foundation for the other musicians. The compositions - eight by Max Stadtfeld and two unexpected standards – are in that vein. Their music is not just some intellectual showing-off, it bobbles along in the rhythm-oriented mainstream, and yet, over and above that, it is imbued with an astonishing sense of both freshness and maturity. The album begins with the hymn-like "Liggeringen", a homage to Max Stadtfeld's hometown near Lake Constance. This is where the journey begins. New spaces are opened up and filled again and again with improvisational vitality. Sometimes the starting-point is a thank you to a friend ("McDain"), sometimes it's a mad-up word that can launch an idyll ("Kluduhulo"), or sometimes it's just the fun of either packing "Fifteen Shades of Grey" into fifteen bars, or of remembering Cole Porter ("Begin The Beguine") or the Jungle Book. What matters is to keep things flexible but also to maintain a fundamental honesty towards guiding principles, so that the band can stay spontaneous and bring out something new every time. To run with things – and to let things run. Stax are playing the music of now - and at an amazing level of achievement. These musicians formulate shared narratives that go way beyond the mindless clicks and zappings of their generation. They listen to each other and react, and it’s different each time. There's a lot of substance to them and what they do. They have earned and deserved the trust they receive. School’s out for summer, for ever, and for the good. This is young German jazz at its best. Credits: Produced by Max Stadtfeld Recorded by Christian Heck at Loft Cologne, December 4, 2017 & February 28, 2018 Mixed by Christian Heck at tonart-studio Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann Cover art by Jo Pauli: Nicht Sehen, by kind permission of the artist