Bernd Lhotzky - The Gallery Concerts III: Rag BagCD / Vinyl / digitalBernd Lhotzky pianoBernd Lhotzky has been Germany’s most important exponent of classic jazz piano for the past three decades. However, his approach to music from the early days of jazz on his new solo album ‘Rag Bag’ is anything but museum-like. He says: ‘What fascinates me in music, art and life in general are the contradictions and contrasts, the syncopations, the cracks in time.’ ‘Rag Bag’ is a journey between times and worlds, a patchwork of the most diverse motifs, styles and associations. The nucleus of the album's music is Ragtime, one of the earliest forms of jazz. Lhotzky says: ‘To this day, what I love about this music is that it is so warm, life-affirming and undisguised and simply bursts with vitality and honest joy.Lhotzky’s contribution to the rediscovery of jazz from the twenties to the fifties has been immeasurable, in particular his role as the artistic director and creative fountainhead of the internationally celebrated band ‘Echoes of Swing’, but also as an organizer and promoter of concerts and festivals. And it all started with Ragtime. Lhotzky says: ‘This music was my route into jazz. And what still fascinates me today is how warm, life-affirming and unpretentious about this music is. I love the jazz of the early days because it is bursting with such vitality and honest joy.’ And when Lhotzky looks back at the decisive events which fired his enthusiasm for early jazz, Ragtime was there first. He has previously spoken of the time when as an eleven year old, an uncle gave him a Fats Waller record, the moment which sparked off his love of Harlem Stride piano. But already at the age of nine he was taken to a concert of music by Scott Joplin, and that was his very first introduction to this music. Over the years, his enthusiasm for the roots of jazz, which are also his own musical roots, fuelled Lhotzky's desire as composer and pianist to focus his activity on working at the intersection between contemporary jazz and Ragtime. When he told ACT founder Siggi Loch about his idea, the latter invited the pianist to a concert in the intimate surroundings of his ACT Art Collection in Berlin - and made sure that the performance was recorded. The resulting album ‘Rag Bag’ is the third in the ACT series ‘The Gallery Concerts’. These are live chamber music recordings in a special and exclusive setting, and ‘Rag Bag’ follows on from two duo recordings: one with pianist Johanna Summer and saxophonist Jakob Manz, two of the greatest rising stars of German jazz, and the other with the Swedish jazz greats Jan Lundgren and Hans Backenroth. Bernd Lhotzky’s journey to the origins of jazz also reflects on the present day. ‘Rag Bag‘ has been a real liberation,’ says Lhotzky. ‘The solo format allows me to be completely uncompromising. This is me, just me, all the time.‘ His journey to the origins of jazz is therefore also a reflection on Lhotzky’s own career until the present day: ‘My improvisations are a patchwork of different motifs and styles that have shaped my musical personality since I started playing jazz at the age of nine.‘ One of Lhotzky's strongest influences is the pianist Scott Joplin, a pioneer of crossing boundaries and blending genres in his time - whose compositions between jazz and classical music, with all their subtlety, grace, beauty and artistry, form a stark contrast to the tragic life of their creator. In many respects, ‘Rag Bag’ is a minor musical miracle. Firstly, because Lhotzky had only eight weeks to prepare this complex programme. But above all, paradoxically because ‘Rag Bag’ sounds so modern. Yes, Lhotzky may be playing music whose melodies, procedures and rules are over a hundred years old - ‘The ‘Linden Tree Rag’, for example,’ he says, ‘is based on a piece from 1850, and is more like French salon music.’ What makes Lhotzky's take on this kind of music feel so modern is his incredible instinct for improvisatory freedom. His compositions - from ‘Synkope schlüpft’ (the syncopation slips) to ‘Yara's Lazy Strut’ to ‘Maple Syrup’ or ‘The Host's Request’ - take beautiful structures and simple melodies and transform them into self-contained mind games where intuition rules. Without ever departing from the Ragtime framework, he manages to be completely free within it. ‘Out Of Bondage’ may serve as a prime example. It briefly echoes Scott Joplin's best-known piece ‘The Entertainer’ as if in a dream, only to immediately lead into a dramatic prelude, almost reminiscent of Grieg or Debussy in its impressionism and its fractured line, leading to a sudden explosion at the end. The result is a very special and exciting jazz album with the accessibility and cheerfulness of the early jazz entertainers, but we see them in a completely new light, both because of his original concept, and because of his deep knowledge of the history of the music which reaches right up to the present day. ‘Rag Bag’ has immediacy, the tingle of a live performance and the inspiration of the moment. A minor miracle!Credits: Recorded at the ACT Art Gallery, Berlin Cover art “Welle” (detail) von Manfred Bockelmann

Jan Lundgren - The Gallery Concerts II: Jazz PoetryCD / digital Jan Lundgren piano Hans Backenroth bass "In every beginning magic dwells. [...] Only those who are ready for a departure and a journey can escape the stultification of habit," wrote Hermann Hesse in one of his most famous poems. "Jazz Poetry" is alive with the particular excitement that a first-time experience brings, and also with the courage to surrender to the moment. The programme for this concert by Jan Lundgren and Hans Backenroth, their first ever as a duo, was conceived as a one-off and includes brand-new compositions. The setting is inspiring, to say the least: at these "Gallery Concerts", exclusive music evenings in Siggi Loch's ACT Art Gallery, the performers and the invited audience are surrounded by fine contemporary art, works by Philip Taaffe, Gerhard Richter, Martin Noël and Martin Assig...Front and centre is the Alfred Brendel Steinway, the grand piano on which the classical piano legend would perform as soloist at Berlin’s Philharmonie. Jan Lundgren has often proved during his career that he is a true jazz poet, especially with the Mare Nostrum Trio, but also more recently with Emile Parisien and Lars Danielsson on "Into the Night". "Jazz Poetry” as the strapline for this concert could not be more fitting: "Like a poem, music stimulates your imagination. A sound can be as abstract as a metaphor,” says the pianist. “Like writers, we musicians tell stories and create images in our minds. What we have in common is that we want to touch people's hearts." "Jazz Poetry" meets these idealistic aims: there is wonderful lyricism in Lundgren’s and Backenroth’s lively dialogue between jazz and classical music, folk melody and song.Two Swedes, a duo of piano and bass. They inevitably bring to mind the 1964 album "Jazz på svenska" by Jan Johansson and Georg Riedel of jazz arrangements of Swedish folk songs, an album which is still a reference for the Scandinavian jazz today. The "Gallery Concert" makes allusions to this historic recording, especially with the two adaptations of Scandinavian folk melodies, "Polska No.1" and "Gårdsjänta", but the range of inspiration is much broader here, because what is special about Lundgren's art is his ability to forge the most diverse musical styles into a fascinating whole. It is true that the sonic language of his homeland permeates his playing, but he also has roots in the American jazz piano tradition, as well as an obvious grounding in Western classical music.  Thus, Leonard Cohen leads to Mozart; a Beatles classic sits alongside the jazz standard "Stella by Starlight". Swing, what Nordic people call ‘vemod’ (melancholy), Mozartian playfulness and impressionistic ‘esprit’ all co-exist with Lundgren in a way that is as natural as it is inevitable. In his own compositions he shows himself to have a beguiling gift for melody. There is a particularly impressive lightness about the way this duo performs at its premiere. The pair develop a sense of flow which makes the unexpected sound completely natural. The astonishing thing here is the fact that Lundgren and Backenroth have never worked as a duo prior to this. They have known each other from early years of their careers. Since then, their paths have crossed again and again, also on recordings where both were engaged as sidemen. "We were always in contact, but until then it never happened that we would start our own project. So when Siggi Loch invited me to do a gallery concert and to try a new programme, Hans was my first choice. He is a great bass player with amazing technique and a warm, full tone, and a sensitive accompanist with a great ear for melody." These qualities are well appreciated by others too, most notably by the top flight of Swedish jazz musicians. Saxophone legend Arne Domnerus once called Backenroth the best bass player his country had produced. Putte Wickman, Monica Zetterlund, Svante Thuresson and Ulf Wakenius also secured Backenroth's services...and, what many don't know is that he was the original bassist of the Esbjörn Svensson Trio. Internationally he has played with Scott Hamilton, James Moody, Kenny Barron and many more. Backenroth, born in Karlstad in 1966, can be heard on over 150 albums to date.  This duo is not going to remain as a ‘one-evening wonder’, far from it. The "Gallery Concert" marks a beginning and will pave the way for an ongoing collaboration: further concerts are in the diary for winter 2022. The duo give a captivating performance; their poetry in sound is chamber jazz at its finest.Credits: Recorded live in concert at the ACT Art Collection Gallery, Berlin Curated by Siggi Loch Cover art by Manfred Bockelmann

Jakob Manz & Johanna Summer - The Gallery Concerts ICD / digital Jakob Manz alto saxophone & recorder (on 5) Johanna Summer piano The Art in Music – Siggi Loch has had the clear objective to foster creative interaction between jazz and visual art ever since he founded ACT in 1992. As a producer who is also an art collector, he loves to bring not only topflight musicians together around him, but visual artists as well. Works by Philip Taaffe, Gerhard Richter, Martin Noël, Martin Assig and many more don’t just adorn album covers, they are also on display at the ACT Gallery in Berlin. And it is there, in the gallery, before a small and select audience, that private musical evenings known as the Gallery Concerts take place. The works of art provide an inspiring visual backdrop for artists to try out new things. The house concerts are special, up close and personal; these extraordinary musical experiences are now being made available for a wider public to enjoy. On 27 October 2021 Jakob Manz and Johanna Summer were performing... Manz and Summer are two of the most outstanding talents to emerge from the young German jazz scene in recent years. As a duo, their dialogue is intimate, open and scintil-lating. The saxophonist (b. 2001) has shown above all through his band the Jakob Manz Project that he is a passionate exponent of contemporary jazz-rock, playing “amazingly sophisticated, powerful, soulful-funky music with groove” (Jazzthing). In partnership with Johanna Summer (b. 1995), he also shows his mastery of the quiet and the lyrical. German jazz icon Joachim Kühn admires his young pianist colleague, and is full of praise for her “music, so full of fantasy and beyond category”. With Summer, nothing is ever done for the sake of surface effect; it is all about the storytelling, and her fully-formed instincts for dramaturgy, dynamics and harmony. From the very first note, it is evident how perfectly matched Manz and Summer are. A magic and freedom emerge in the way they play together.  Inspired by the spirit of discovery, they have the courage to surrender to the moment and be totally spontaneous, fresh and carefree in their musicmaking. Any flaws just become part of the charm. Manz and Summer's “Gallery Concert” is a musical prologue: one can still only guess where and how this artistic relationship, still in its early stages, might develop.Credits: Live in concert at ACT Art Collection Gallery Berlin, 27.10.2021 Recorded, mixed and mastered by Klaus Scheuermann Curated by Siggi Loch Cover art "Das Sterben der Blätter" by Manfred Bockelmann / ACT Art Collection