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![Speaking Sound]( "Speaking Sound")
Joachim Kühn
Joachim Kühn
Speaking Sound
VÖ: 31.01.2020
Genre: Piano Jazz
Joachim Kühn / piano
Mateusz Smoczyński / violin & baritone violin
Recorded by Gerard Guse at Salinas Studio, Ibiza, Spain, 24. - 26.4. 2019 Mixed by Jan Smoczyński at Studio Tokarnia, Nieporęt (Poland) Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann Steinway C tuned by Antonio Perez de Olaguer
the art in music:Cover art by Wojciech Fangor, E 9, 1966, oil on canvas, 127 x 127 cm © courtesy of Fangor Foundation
There is serendipity about Joachim Kühn and Mateusz Smoczyński having combined as a duo. Their musical conversations tend to be sparked off by catchy little themes or motifs. Dialogues evolve freely, but also have a real sense of focus. Their pulse and their breathing seem to be as one. The pair have the courage to set off wherever their combined fantasy and imagination will take them, finding all kinds of moods and emotions along the way.
On “Speaking Sound”, the sounds do indeed speak for themselves. Jazz has always been about what musicians have to say through their the instruments and about developing a personal sound. Joachim Kühn and Mateusz Smoczyński do this in a way that is not just congenial but also completely enthralling. Both have roots in classical music: the pianist grew up in Bach’s town of Leipzig, and the violinist, four decades younger than him, is a graduate of the Frédéric Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw. The principle that the European classical tradition can come alive through the expressive possibilities of jazz is part of the creative essence of both of these musicians.
When he is playing in his New Trio with Chris Jennings and Eric Schaefer, Joachim Kühn lands naturally in a groove which has both a sense of urgency and velocity and a magical allure about it; by contrast, the prevalent mood in his duo with Mateusz Smoczyński is far more contemplative. Kühn explains that in their instrumental dia-logues, they have tended to settle into a feel that is both tranquil and essentially positive. Such warmth and generosity of spirit were hallmarks of Ornette Coleman, whom Joachim Kühn idolised early on, and with whom he also had the good fortune to work very closely. And whereas Joachim Kühn's current solo project "Melodic Ornette" allows the unique beauty of Coleman's melodies to shine through, in his duo with Mateusz Smoczyński, the focus is his own compositions plus pieces by musician friends such as the tune "Schubertauster" by Vincent Peirani. The core context remains European, but with Rabih Abou-Khalil's "I'm Better Off Without You" and also "No. 40" from Gurdjieff's "Asian Songs and Rhythms" there is a clear sense of an openness to the Orient.
Piano and violin is a conventional combination in classical music and this duo knowingly maintains that legacy. Nevertheless, this chamber music with its boundless possibilities would not have been conceivable without the impulse of jazz.
And Joachim Kühn and Mateusz Smoczyński share one reference point which is the work of the Polish jazz violinist Zbigniew Seifert. Unlike any of his predecessors, Seifert succeeded in transferring something of the sound and the spirit of Coltrane to the violin, while at the same time incorporating his own Slavic mindset. Joachim Kühn was a close friend of the violinist who died tragically early in 1979. Their work together was quite superb, as can be heard from Kühn's records "Cinemascope" and "Springfever", and also from Seifert's seminal 1976 recording "Man Of The Light". Joachim Kühn was also the pianist when Seifert's "Jazz Concerto for violin, symphony orchestra and rhythm section" received its premiere in Hanover in 1974 with the NDR Radio Orchestra.
No one from Poland who plays jazz violin can possibly avoid the influence of Zbigniew Seifert. Mateusz Smoczyński has internalized the work of his forerunner, and yet he has found its own language and also developed a brilliant technique which is highly individual. His achievements led in 2016 to him being awarded First Prize at the International Competition for Jazz Violinists in Krakow, a competitition which bears Seifert’s name. Smoczyński is co-founder of the Atom String Quartet, a group well known far beyond the borders of Poland, and was first violin in the legendary Turtle Island String Quartet from 2012 to 2016. He works with his own quintet, with his New Trio, has made his mark as a composer, with the violin concerto "Adam's Apple" for example, and has also released a solo album.
Kühn and Smoczyński appeared for the first time together on stage in 2009 at the Polish premiere of Zbigniew Seifert's Violin Concerto in Kraków with the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra. Then followed another meeting at a concert in Katowice in 2018, this time with the National Symphony Orchestra of Polish Radio. Joachim Kühn was delighted to discover quite how far the violinist’s playing had developed in the interim. After duo improvisations in the dressing room of the Philharmonic Hall in Katowice, Kühn suggested they should do a recording together at his home on Ibiza. So, five months later, in April 2019, Mateusz Smoczyński stood with his violin alongside Joachim Kühn seated at the Steinway. Relaxed, and enjoying vistas of the salt flats at the southern tip of the island and of the sea beyond, they recorded music for 4 1/2 hours with virtually no retakes. This album captures some of the most impressive moments from that session. Their dialogues are somehow luminous. There is eloquence without ever being garrulous, beautiful sound but an avoidance of any descent into triviality. Two musicians who inspire and trust each other have found repose and clarity in a world that has lost its bearings.
Mateusz Smoczyński / violin & baritone violin
Recorded by Gerard Guse at Salinas Studio, Ibiza, Spain, 24. - 26.4. 2019 Mixed by Jan Smoczyński at Studio Tokarnia, Nieporęt (Poland) Mastered by Klaus Scheuermann Steinway C tuned by Antonio Perez de Olaguer
the art in music:Cover art by Wojciech Fangor, E 9, 1966, oil on canvas, 127 x 127 cm © courtesy of Fangor Foundation
There is serendipity about Joachim Kühn and Mateusz Smoczyński having combined as a duo. Their musical conversations tend to be sparked off by catchy little themes or motifs. Dialogues evolve freely, but also have a real sense of focus. Their pulse and their breathing seem to be as one. The pair have the courage to set off wherever their combined fantasy and imagination will take them, finding all kinds of moods and emotions along the way.
On “Speaking Sound”, the sounds do indeed speak for themselves. Jazz has always been about what musicians have to say through their the instruments and about developing a personal sound. Joachim Kühn and Mateusz Smoczyński do this in a way that is not just congenial but also completely enthralling. Both have roots in classical music: the pianist grew up in Bach’s town of Leipzig, and the violinist, four decades younger than him, is a graduate of the Frédéric Chopin Music Academy in Warsaw. The principle that the European classical tradition can come alive through the expressive possibilities of jazz is part of the creative essence of both of these musicians.
When he is playing in his New Trio with Chris Jennings and Eric Schaefer, Joachim Kühn lands naturally in a groove which has both a sense of urgency and velocity and a magical allure about it; by contrast, the prevalent mood in his duo with Mateusz Smoczyński is far more contemplative. Kühn explains that in their instrumental dia-logues, they have tended to settle into a feel that is both tranquil and essentially positive. Such warmth and generosity of spirit were hallmarks of Ornette Coleman, whom Joachim Kühn idolised early on, and with whom he also had the good fortune to work very closely. And whereas Joachim Kühn's current solo project "Melodic Ornette" allows the unique beauty of Coleman's melodies to shine through, in his duo with Mateusz Smoczyński, the focus is his own compositions plus pieces by musician friends such as the tune "Schubertauster" by Vincent Peirani. The core context remains European, but with Rabih Abou-Khalil's "I'm Better Off Without You" and also "No. 40" from Gurdjieff's "Asian Songs and Rhythms" there is a clear sense of an openness to the Orient.
Piano and violin is a conventional combination in classical music and this duo knowingly maintains that legacy. Nevertheless, this chamber music with its boundless possibilities would not have been conceivable without the impulse of jazz.
And Joachim Kühn and Mateusz Smoczyński share one reference point which is the work of the Polish jazz violinist Zbigniew Seifert. Unlike any of his predecessors, Seifert succeeded in transferring something of the sound and the spirit of Coltrane to the violin, while at the same time incorporating his own Slavic mindset. Joachim Kühn was a close friend of the violinist who died tragically early in 1979. Their work together was quite superb, as can be heard from Kühn's records "Cinemascope" and "Springfever", and also from Seifert's seminal 1976 recording "Man Of The Light". Joachim Kühn was also the pianist when Seifert's "Jazz Concerto for violin, symphony orchestra and rhythm section" received its premiere in Hanover in 1974 with the NDR Radio Orchestra.
No one from Poland who plays jazz violin can possibly avoid the influence of Zbigniew Seifert. Mateusz Smoczyński has internalized the work of his forerunner, and yet he has found its own language and also developed a brilliant technique which is highly individual. His achievements led in 2016 to him being awarded First Prize at the International Competition for Jazz Violinists in Krakow, a competitition which bears Seifert’s name. Smoczyński is co-founder of the Atom String Quartet, a group well known far beyond the borders of Poland, and was first violin in the legendary Turtle Island String Quartet from 2012 to 2016. He works with his own quintet, with his New Trio, has made his mark as a composer, with the violin concerto "Adam's Apple" for example, and has also released a solo album.
Kühn and Smoczyński appeared for the first time together on stage in 2009 at the Polish premiere of Zbigniew Seifert's Violin Concerto in Kraków with the Kraków Philharmonic Orchestra. Then followed another meeting at a concert in Katowice in 2018, this time with the National Symphony Orchestra of Polish Radio. Joachim Kühn was delighted to discover quite how far the violinist’s playing had developed in the interim. After duo improvisations in the dressing room of the Philharmonic Hall in Katowice, Kühn suggested they should do a recording together at his home on Ibiza. So, five months later, in April 2019, Mateusz Smoczyński stood with his violin alongside Joachim Kühn seated at the Steinway. Relaxed, and enjoying vistas of the salt flats at the southern tip of the island and of the sea beyond, they recorded music for 4 1/2 hours with virtually no retakes. This album captures some of the most impressive moments from that session. Their dialogues are somehow luminous. There is eloquence without ever being garrulous, beautiful sound but an avoidance of any descent into triviality. Two musicians who inspire and trust each other have found repose and clarity in a world that has lost its bearings.
Joachim Kühn
Around his 80th birthday on 15 March 2024, the piano artistry of Joachim Kühn, Germany’s pre-eminent jazz pianist, is in its prime. Whereas he is able to draw on a vast wealth of experience from a life fully lived, his powers to concentrate entirely on the present and to live in the moment - things he has done all his life - are undimmed. Kühn’s 80th birthday is also a good moment to reflect on the extent to which the pianist has broken through internationally, and now has his place among the greats in a way that no other jazz pianist from Germany has achieved. He can look back on decades of creative work in which he has not just witnessed jazz history and adapted miraculously to it, but has also taken a role in shaping it and carrying it forward. Joachim Kühn has had a 50-year association with ACT founder Siggi Loch, stretching back to 1972 and the album "Springfever", released on Atlantic Records. Their partnership has prospered on ACT since 1992 and found a fruitful continuation in the current decade under Andreas Brandis. Kühn's 19 albums on ACT show a musician with a kaleidoscopic range. At the larger end of the scale is the jazz symphony "Europeana", other highlights include the Kühn / Bekkas / Lopez trio, which links North Africa with Europe, the Joachim Kühn New Trio, his fruitful cross-generational duo with Michael Wollny, and several solo recordings. In his playing, Joachim Kühn combines an irrepressible striving for artistic freedom with an unerring sense of musical quality in a way that is always truly compelling. Another hallmark is the way in which his playful lightness is always tinged with such strong and deep emotion. Each of Joachim Kühn's concerts or recordings is a special event. His beguiling improvisations unfold and develop in such fascinating ways, they seem to be happening of their own accord. And this is true not just of his solo performances, but equally in both his work in the New Trio with bassist Chris Jennings and drummer Eric Schaefer and his duo with Michael Wollny, - thirty-five years younger than him - which has been documented on two ACT albums, most recently "DUO", released in early 2024. Kühn and Wollny are kindred spirits in the depth of their musical sensibilities, in their exuberant imagination, their determination never to compromise artistically, and in their endeavours to transcend musical boundaries. Alongside echoes of the great classical and romantic piano tradition, Joachim Kühn - particularly in the trio- reveals how strongly and how fully he has assimilated the essence of jazz. Shadows and resonances of the past are transformed alchemically into an innovatively orientated sound language which is wholly his own.
Joachim Kühn's career is remarkable in the way it embraces different eras, countries and continents, and yet, despite the musical and political upheavals of the pianist’s eight decades, there is a constant: the pursuit of musical freedom. Born in Leipzig in 1944, he has had a homing instinct for the greats of the music since his earliest youth: John Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Bach. His older brother, clarinettist Rolf Kühn, became his role model and later his musical partner. He had a long, intense and significant collaboration with his early idol Ornette Coleman. And his admiration for Johann Sebastian Bach became a powerful memory in his joint music-making with the choir from Bach’s own church, the Leipzig Thomanerchor. Joachim Kühn's career in music has been so many-faceted, a brief summary will never do it justice: free jazz in the cauldron of the sixties in Paris, fusion music in California, modern jazz in New York, solos, duos, trios, countless records, and finally the decision to settle in Ibiza, which is the base from which the pianist travels the world.
For someone like Joachim Kühn, who lives one hundred per cent through his immersion in music, there is no standing still. He is driven by a force within which leads him to continue to develop all the time. It would be understandable if he were just to stand back and take pride in all that he has achieved - but he won't. He has played with the elite of jazz, with musicians such as Ornette Coleman, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders and Joe Henderson. He recorded "Impressions Of New York" with his brother Rolf and Coltrane's bassist Jimmy Garrison. His trio with Daniel Humair and Jean-François Jenny-Clark became an integral part of European jazz history. And in the trios with Majid Bekkas / Ramón López and Rabih Abou-Khalil, he succeeded in opening up jazz to the cultures of the world. But for this pianist, the search is never-ending. He threw off all constraints and limits from the perspective of technique long ago. What matters to him, he says, is pure music. And to make it with the greatest urgency and truthfulness.
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CD
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Vinyl
€27.00*
SACD
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2-CD
€20.00*
CD
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CD
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CD
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CD
€17.50*
Joachim Kühn
Vinyl
€27.00*
Tip
Tip
€12.90*
CD
€17.50*
€20.00*
CD
€17.50*
€17.50*
€17.50*
CD
€17.50*
2-CD
€20.00*
€17.50*
CD
€17.50*