George Mraz

Richie Beirach & Gregor Huebner - Live at Birdland New YorkCD / digital Richie Beirach piano Gregor Huebner violin Randy Brecker trumpet George Mraz bass Billy Hart drums Happy Birthday Richie Beirach and Gregor Huebner! When it comes to jazz musicians improving with age, the pianist Richie Beirach is a perfect example. With the release of “Live at Birdland New York” the pianist-composer is celebrating his 70th birthday, and demonstrates he’s still at the top of his game alongside his congenial partner of two decades, the Stuttgart-born, New York based violinist Gregor Huebner. Another birthday boy, Huebner is also celebrating a milestone, reaching half a century on May 23, the exact same day as Beirach. As a tribute, the leading Munich-based jazz label ACT releases a CD featuring highlights recorded in 2012 from their decade long annual week’s ‘live’ residence at the illustrious Birdland in New York, in which they are joined by the high calibre lineup of bassist George Mraz, trumpeter Randy Brecker and drummer Billy Hart. Big birthdays are though not the only thing the esteemed pair have in common. Both musicians studied independently of each other with the same classical composition teacher, Ludmilla Uhlela at Manhattan School of Music, and both have an eastern European background. Huebner reflects on their enduring creative partnership over 21 years: “Richie always says we still play in the same way today like we played in the first minute in 1996 in his little apartment on Spring Street in NYC and I feel the same way, even though we have incredibly developed our music together. The spirit and the bond between us was already there in the first minute.” It’s through the development of their own uniquely imaginative version of ‘third stream’, the absorption of elements of the European ‘classical’ music tradition into New York’s postbop idioms that they’ve found so much common ground. They recorded together a triology of CDs for ACT in the early noughties: “Round About Bártok” (2000), “Round About Federico Mompou” (2001) and “Round About Monteverdi” (2003). A couple of the tracks from these albums are revisited on the CD. “Around Bartók Bagatelle #4” at first reflects the elegant classicism of Beirach’s mesmerizing solo piano recordings then later his restless, harmonically adventurous artistry that has glimpses of the early influence of McCoy Tyner and Bill Evans among other piano modernist giants. As does his solo on Johann Sebastian Bach’s “Siciliana” with Huebner’s violin adding a bewitching yearning, jazz-inflected mediterranean quality. “I think the music of certain composers is more approachable for improvisation then others,” observes Huebner. “For example Bach was a great improviser and you hear that in his music. In some of the romantic composers you find similar harmonic structures which were used later in jazz and with Bártok and other composers from the 20th century the rhythmic part is very interesting. The mix of the music on the CD is very typical for us, you find classical pieces, our own compositions, a typical jazz standard and a composition by John Coltrane [“Transition”]. Each piece brings something totally new but everything is connected through improvisation.” Of his originals, one of Beirach’s most popular, a classical-influenced, hauntingly melancholic version of “Elm” is a standout piece. Beirach’s infectious latin vamp on the standard “You Don’t Know What Love Is” is associated with Chet Baker and a reminder of Beirach’s tenure in his band early on in his career. Approaching the ripe old age of 70, it’s a moment to consider Richie Beirach’s high level achievements as one of America’s greatest living modernist jazz piano stylists. Originally a sideman of both Stan Getz and the aforementioned Baker, Beirach among others has enjoyed a memorably intimate association with the saxophonist Dave Liebman since the 1970s, in bands (Quest, Lookout Farm) that included the legendary Billy Hart whose explosive presence at times on the recording eclipses entirely his 76 years on the planet. “For Richie,” Huebner explains, “these are his oldest friends, these are the people he grew up with and these are the people he developed his music together.” In jazz that development doesn’t come to an end. It’s testament to the exploratory ‘young at heart’ spirit of the grand jazz masters on “Live at Birdland New York” that not for a second does anyone rest on their considerable laurels.Credits: Recorded by Tyler McDiarmid live at Birdland New York, August 25 & 26, 2012 Mixed and mastered by Klaus Scheuermann Produced by the artists Cover art by Philip Taaffe Flowers, 1995, ACT Art Collection

Various Artists - Monteverdi in the Spirit of  JazzCD / digitalaolo Fresu, Richard Galliano & Jan Lundgren Richie Beirach, Gregor Huebner & George Mraz Michael Riessler, Vincent Courtois & Singer Pur Jan Lundgren, Lars Danielsson & The Gustaf Sjökvist Chamber Choir Danilo Rea & Flavio Boltro Michael Wollny TrioWhen Richie Beirach recorded his 2002 album “Round About Monteverdi”, it made him reflect: "I’ve been involved with music for my whole life,” he said, “but this was something I knew very little about.” Such reflections are not uncommon; Claudio Monteverdi is one of those figures in the development of music whose role was crucial, yet whose presence is shadowy. 2017 would have marked his 450th birthday: the composer, singer and viola da gamba player was born in May 1567 in Cremona in Northern Italy. Active in the twilight of the renaissance, Monteverdi was an innovator in vocal music as it moved forward into the baroque. He didn’t invent opera - he was born just a few decades too late - but was the first composer to really take it to its heights. He was a visionary, yet his star waned after his death, and he only re-appeared properly in the sights of musicologists and performers in the twentieth century … and of jazz musicians too: Beirach admitted astonishment at the freshness, depth and genius of this music: “I had no idea there was so much happening during this epoch. I’d always thought that Johann Sebastian Bach had begun something new. Now it’s clear to me that Bach is the culmination of what Monteverdi and his contemporaries had worked on.” Five pieces from Beirach’s album with Gregor Huebner and George Mraz - now out of print for some years - form the connective tissue of this album saluting the Monteverdi anniversary “in the spirit of jazz”. Beirach’s ingenuity in adapting Monteverdi’s vivid compositions for a jazz piano trio is, however, just a part of the story. German a capella group Singer Pur bring the epitome of poised choral singing to “Amor - Lamento della Ninfa”, accompanied by bass clarinettist Michael Riessler and cellist Vincent Courtois. And an opera album obviously needs ist Italians: Pianist Danilo Rea and trumpeter Flavio Boltro make their instruments sing from the heart in the “Toccata From Orfeo” and “Lasciatemi morire”. Radiant, magical classicism with just a glimpse of modernity prevails in “Se nel partir da voi” from pianist Jan Lundgren with Lars Danielsson and the Gustaf Sjökvist Chamber Choir. Lundgren is also in the Mare Nostrum trio, with Paolo Fresu on trumpet and accordionist Richard Galliano. They imbue “Si dolce è il tormento” with the spirit and the heritage of European folk music. And finally there is Michael Wollny. At the sessions for the immensely popular album “Weltentraum”, he and his trio recorded an adaptation of the “Lamento d’Arianna”, which epitomizes the coruscating power of current European jazz. In this age of the cloud, Monteverdi still has much to offer us.Credits:Music composed by Claudio Monteverdi Curated by Siggi Loch Mastered by Johannes Wohlleben at Bauer Studios, Ludwigsburg Artwork © Uwe Kowski, Selber, 2015 / ACT Art Collection, courtesy Galerie EIGEN + ART Leipzig/Berlin

George Mraz - Duo Art: Together AgainCD / digital George Mraz bass Emil Viklický piano A little while ago, the British "Guardian" wrote that ACT was on a mission to sign the best European pianists to its label. Creative virtuosos like Yaron Herman, Leszek Mozdzer and Gwilym Simcock bear witness to the fact that these pianists do not have to come from Scandinavia. And that they don't have to be young is now proven by the Emil Viklicky ACT debut "Together Again". The 65 year-old Czech national has perhaps stayed too down-to-earth for us to have discovered him earlier for what he is: the "patriarch of Czech jazz piano", as the London Evening Standard put it. And "one of the best contemporary pianists, whose touch, voicing and chords have a lot in common with the grand masters of taste the likes of Tommy Flanagan and Jimmy Rowles," as the American periodical Jazz Time wrote of him in 2004. Raised in a musical family in Olmütz, Viklicky first studied mathematics, culminating in an excellent degree, but parallel to that he discovered jazz and practiced so much that he was voted Best Soloist at the Czech Amateur Jazz Festival in 1974. Immediately after, Karel Velebny recruited him for his SHQ Ensemble, which was probably the best-known jazz band in Czechoslovakia. Viklicky won more prizes and ultimately a scholarship to study composition at the Berklee College of Music in Boston. So it was that he spent five years in the American system: "I learned everything you need to know there: the fundamentals of composition and arrangement, but also what it takes to succeed as a professional musician," he recalls. Back in Prague he reaped the benefit of that: Viklicky was not only the best jazz pianists in the country, he was also one of the most celebrated film music composers, one of the most formative teachers, one of the most important neoclassical composers, and for a time after the fall of Communism the president of the Czech Jazz Society. It was there that he met his former countryman again, who had chosen the other path from the same starting point: the bassist four years his senior, George Mraz. Like Viklicky, Mraz also gained his first professional experience with Karel Velebny. Before Viklicky he had also studied in Berklee, and then lived a year in Munich. But unlike Viklicky, Mraz did not return to Czechoslovakia after the suppression of the Prague Spring, but instead went to the US to launch his career. He has credits on almost 1,000 records and CDs. There is as good as no big name in jazz that he hasn't made music with. The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra, Stan Getz, Tommy Flanagan and Richie Beirach (with whom he also recorded three albums for ACT) were his most important regular partners. "George plays the bass like he invented it. He always plays exactly the note you want to hear," said pianist Beirach about him once. Just as significant is that Mraz initially learned violin and alto saxophone: probably the reason why he is possibly the best exponents of the bow in jazz. And he has a strong lyrical streak, which is also capable of going on the offensive, and an unmistakable vibrato. It is no wonder that after ten years with Tommy Flanagan, Mraz ended up with Viklicky just a few years later. They had already met in 1976 at a festival in Yugoslavia. Then, in 1998 they more or less inevitably found their way back to each other, since both of them had the same idea: to transfer the Moravian folk music they had grown up with into jazz. It may surprise some people here, but parallel to the folk music crusade in jazz that started out from Scandinavia to conquer the world, the same occurred in the Czech Republic with "Moravia" in 2002 and "Moravian Gems" in 2007 – although brought out on Milestone in the USA, and not reaching a particularly large audience. But this captivating, imaginative music played by two extraordinary musicians is simply too good to fade into oblivion, thought Siggi Loch. And rightly so, as a track like "Austerlitz" proves: especially the harmonic alterations are quite without comparison, "which is due to the modal character of southern Moravian folk music," as Viklicky explains. And so it is that ballads like "Dear Lover", "Javorina", "Moon and Sleeping In The Cradle" sound like Randy Newman or Ray Charles numbers gone Slavic by means of delicate chromatics, trills and acciaccatura. The European and American classical influence can be heard perfectly, for example on "In Holomóc Town": after the expressionistic, bowed bass introduction comes a veritable lesson in swinging post-bop. And in Leoš Janáček's "Theme From 5th Part Of Sinfonietta", another special feature of this recording can be discovered. Originally, Viklicky had arranged his old and new compositions for a trio, just as he had for the earlier recordings. But while practicing alone with George Mraz in Munich, the two noticed that it sounded good without a drummer too. More than that: when listening to "Together Again" played by a duet, it is difficult to imagine how Viklicky's inimitable playing style, with legato and staccato, could be presented better. A new Czech way of jazz, fresh ideas on traditional foundations and no least of all two of the most remarkable voices of jazz can be discovered on "Together Again". Better late than never.Credits:Produced by Siggi Loch Recorded at Realistic Sound Studio by Florian Oestreicher, January 16 & 17, 2013 Mixed and mastered by Klaus Scheuermann The Art in Music: Cover art (Detail) by Philip Taaffe / ACT Art Collection

"A fantastic record" - STEREO

Richie Beirach, Gregor Huebner, and George Mraz deliver masterful jazz with piano, violin, and bass.

Virtuoso trio with Richie Beirach, Gregor Huebner & George Mraz – Jazz excellence recorded at Bauer Studios Ludwigsburg in 2001

Richie Beirach, Gregor Hübner, and George Mraz merge classical and jazz sounds into a masterful trio.