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Agentur Fischermann Specials
Switzerland
WHO Trio/CH
Stephan Kurmann Strings/CH
No Square/CH
BraffOesterRohrer/CH
Malcolm Braff Trio /CH/USA/BF
Bänz Oester/CH
Tomas Sauter Magic Carpet/CH
Daniel Schläppi & Tomas Sauter/CH
Elina Duni Quartett/CH
Reto Suhner Quartet/CH
The current tourdatas of Switzerland-Specials:
Please have a look at this fascinating great scene of jazz musicians from Switzerland.
WHO Trio (CH/US)
“Less is more”
Michel Wintsch...grand piano//Bänz Oester...doublebass//Gerry Hemingway...drums
When listening to the unmistakable music of the WHO trio, I have to think of HEINRICH VON KLEIST’s essay “Concerning the Gradual Construction of Thoughts while Speaking,” which he wrote in 1805. In this brilliant short text, KLEIST clearly argues that uttered thoughts arise from speaking situations. Basically, the person speaking freelydoes not know where the trip will take him at the beginning of his speech act. By using pauses and repetition, the speaker organizes and becomes conscious of thoughts, thus gaining deeper insight into the material at the same timehe expresses himself. Along these lines, one can speak of a group gradually constructing music while playing it when one listens to the WHO trio. But in contrast to free jazz, the musicians do not liberate themselves in emphaticimprovisation, but rather they liberate the music of every connotation. At the beginning there is always a statement of noise, sound, rhythmic pattern, groove or harmony. The musical interaction resulting from this creates pauses, space,in each case to develop new ideas from itself. Under the roof of an expanded and self-referential jazz concept, blues and serious music are unified reflexively in pure improvisation. The oxymoron “Less is More,” itself a dictum and titular, is the trio’s motto and conviction to reduce everything to the essential. The musical material is processed minimalistically and transformed successively into a macrocosm. All physical parameters reach
their limits. Tempi seem apparently “timeless” in the tact scheme of the groove. Organically, groovy bass lines encounter polyrhythms, meet up with ad hoc sounds intelligently on microtonally hovering piano lines in kind of hyperspace. Coincidence andinteraction consciously influence how the players act in a reciprocal perpetuum mobile effect. Everything is related to each other and interacts in continuing trial and error processes that become increasingly differentiated; and it is all masterfully controlled by these well rehearsed musicians.
At the same time, the special attraction of this music is its simplicity and its controlled emotionality, or, to agree with the Bauhaus architect HEINRICH TESSENOW, “the simple is not always the best, but the best is always simple.”
2010
by arrangement
01 – 14 (15) February
???
Magdeburg/D
&
01 – 14 Mars
???
L ´ Option
Berne/CH
Oberengstringen/CH
Schwabisch-Hall/D
Bucarest/RO
Winterthur/CH
Brixen/I
Zurich/CH
***
Stephan Kurmann Strings (CH)
“play Hermeto Pascoal”
Andy Scherrer ... tenor/soprano sax//Adrian Mears ... trombone//Stephan Kurmann ... bass//Julio Barreto ... drums// Willy Kotoun ... percussion//Felix Borel ... violin//Akiko Hasegawa ... violin//Matthijs Bunschoten ... viola//Daniel Pezzotti ... cello
Video & Musicdownload
http://www.stephankurmann.com/Strings_Pascoal_LiveRec.htm
Jazz became latinized at the end of the 40’s. This process all began in New York with its Spanish-speaking emigrant musicians from the Caribbean. Among others, bongos, congas, maracas, timbales and the shekere made their way into the formations ofthat time. One of the forerunners was Dizzy Gillespie; his cooperation with the legendary conga and bongo player Chano Pozo triggered the discovery of Afro-Cuban roots and rhythms for Bebop. Jazz and Latin-American music are, for and of themselves, already a fusion of mostly European and African cultures and music traditions with differing emphases. The mutual influences of these mixed cultures between and North and South America ran their course. Like these others, Stephan Kurmann knows no fear of contacting different cultures and, with his group “Stephan Kurmann Strings,”understands well how to bring together music of different origins. For this he has found his very own format and ideal partners for his musical adventure. A quintet made of two powerful and still agile brass instrumentalists plus an expanded rhythm group (double bass, drums, and percussion) meets the elegant complexity of a string quartet, which endows the group with harmony. Stephan Kurmann has strode the borders of jazz from his beginnings. He has never needed to worry about lacking variety – in his thirty-year-long career as a bassist, he has studied in Cuba and played and recorded mostly in the area of jazz with countless well-known and unknown musicians from all thinkable cultures. He now lives half his life in Switzerland and half in Brazil, where he has already played a part in many CD productions and concerts. In his latest recording with the Strings, he dedicates himself to the music of Hermeto Pascoal, who has not had any blinkers hiding any music form, be it folklore, folk music, dance music, nature sounds, classical, new music or jazz. The arrangements stem from Hermeto Pascoal’s pianist of long standing, Jovino Santos Neto. The music swings and grooves through the country of all possible Brazilian and other rhythms. It all leaves the impression of a large family beyond all spaciousjazz scenes. The code of this music – recognizable again and again – is boundlessness. Stephan Kurmann’s Strings makes up a wonderful duality of energy driving jazz solos and a Brazilian rhythmic-melodic parallel world. Stephan Kurmann is a true global player in jazz and Afro-Cuban and Brazilian music. In his music, one finds no barriers, but rather the pure binding energy of a universal language.
Very few groups develop this radiance with simultaneous lightness. Yet this is exactly what has succeeded so perfectly in the music of Stephan Kurmann’s Strings.
23 September - 13 October 2009
24 – 09 Pfaffenhofen/D
25 – 09 Dinslaken/D
09 – 10 Chur/CH
10 – 10 Thalwil/CH
Option
Rotterdam/NL
Saarbrücken/D
Villingen/D
Wiesbaden/D
Braunschweig/D
***
No Square (CH)
“Double Album”
Guillaume Perret (Soprano & Tenor Saxophone)/ Marc Méan (Grand piano)/ André Hahne (E-Bass)/ Yannick Oppligger (Drums)
The border regions of Switzerland have produced a disproportionately hot melting pot of excellent Jazz musicians.
No Square is synonymous with extreme harmony between individualists. As in an isosceles triangle, each corner is the same distance from each other and in direct connection, i.e. a real musical referendum. Thus the name: no square. Here, a collective is at work without the loss of individual freedom. In its now seven year band history, No Square has become a magical astronomic triangle with soli that storm the heavens, consciousness expanding musical zeniths and energetic magical moments. It is Jazz in close-up to the creative improvising pulse of the musicians. Only Jazz that is alive can conjure up this radiating power and fascination.The diversity of language and the unfettered power of the band are also full of life. In the end, one remains with the impression of a great collective that celebrates the boundlessness of a Jazz that is expressive even in the quieter ballads. With No Square, one can immediately put an end to the public mourning over the ostensive death of Jazz. Or, to paraphrase Frank Zappa: Jazz is not dead, it just smells a bit of Swiss cheese.
02 – 07 Fribourg/CH
03 - 15 October
?? 03 ??
04 - 10 Russelsheim/D
?? 05 ??
06 - 10 Danzig/PL
07 - 10 Torun/PL
08 - 10 Warschawa/PL tbc
09 - 10 Warschawa/PL tbc
10 - 10 Posen/PL
11 - 10 Berlin/D tbc
???
01 - 15 November
Southamericatour (Uruguay, Chili, Argentinia)
03 - 11 Buenos Aires/AR
04 - 11 Montevideo/UR
05 - 11 Buenos Aires/AR
06 - 11 Buenos Aires/AR
07 - 11 Buenos Aires/AR
10 - 11 Santiago/CH
12 - 11 Buenos Aires/AR
13 - 11 Cordoba/AR
15 - 11 Cordoba/AR
05 - 12 Geneva/CH
12 - 12 Saignelegier/CH
Option
Villingen/D
Erfurt/D
Ludwigsburg/D
***
BraffOesterRohrer (CH)
Malcolm Braff (grandpiano); Bänz Oester (doublebass); Samuel Rohrer (dr, Perc)
These formidable musicians have taken the long path of intuition and created a musical arc like continents of interaction. There’s a bass sound here like an ocean of tenderness, there a breath of high hat and thin-skinned snare that gives one goose bumps. The piano is like a love swing between jazz and pop, Africa and analogue electronics. The energy of the collective is paired with the sensibility of the individual. We make contact with each other using our own compositions as well as melodic classics from the chanson tradition and pop music. There Norwegian Wood sounds like ebony. The African trace elements [the pianist Braff was born in Rio and grew up in Dakar, Senegal]
fall directly into a listener’s ears.
New CD-Release Tour
“Walkabout”
2009/2010
aprés concertation
2010
18 - 31 January
Option
Essen/D
Bruxelles/B
Berlin/D
Soest/D
Linz/A
Brugg/CH
Marburg/D
Braunschweig/D
&
15 - 21 Mars
Russia/RU-Tournee tbc
summer
Szombathely/HU
***
Reto Suhner Quartet (CH)
“Live in Schaffhausen”
Reto Suhner...Saxophone/Clarinet//Lester Menezes...Grand Piano//Fabian Gisler...Doublebass//Dominik Burkhalter...Drums
Taking my lead from Reto Suhner and his quartet, I would like to introduce the concept of suspense into jazz, in case it hasn’t been done by anyone else. No other word occurs to me and describes Suhner’s music accurately. Like Alfred Hitchcock, who was a great master of film suspense, Reto understands how to produce a feeling of contemplative thrill along with his co-musicians. Classical suspense arises, for example, in the following film situation: the protagonist eats in a restaurant, suspecting nothing. Under his table there is an explosive that can blow up at any time. “The tension results from the knowledge of viewer, who has more information than the protagonist of a film”(according to Francois Truffaut in Hitchcock/Truffaut, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1985). The music of Reto Suhner can be described similarly. Already at the first tact, he plays with the knowledge and concrete expectations of the listener. The “relaxed” mood within the musical communication – a result of years of work – contrasts with the tension of the moment. The omnipresence of melody, harmony and rhythm is within grasp, and yet the quartet lets us “hover in uncertainty.” In this case, many factors increase suspense: the possibility of identifying with the music, highly virtuosic and charged with emotion, the quartet’s readiness to accept risks according to the less-is-more principle, the unpredictability of the music, the puzzles of a secret dramaturgy and the high value of information this constantly present musical quartet delivers. This is jazz in the best sense, not only as an intellectual phenomenon, butit also creates an emotional tension between knowledge and feeling. Long arcs of tension proceed along with detailedarrangements. Again and again, several short phases swell up and ebb away, strengthening each other. In Suhner’s music we find classical and folkloristic traces, retarding and eruptive elements, solo commentary and choral answers, impressionistic nuances and expressionistic colors as driving forces.
For the listener, suspense emerges at all the corners and ends, and still flows effortlessly with a compulsive, aesthetic matter of course toward a musical happy end.This is great, open-minded jazz.
2009
25 September - 11 October
25 - 09 Kirchheim-Teck/D
26 - 09 Fulda/D
27 - 09 Russelsheim/D
28 - 09 Berlin/D
29 - 09 Furth/D
???
01 - 10 Frauenfeld/CH
07 - 14 Novembre
???
07 - 11 Helmbrechts/D
???
&
2010
aprés concertation
Option
NURNBERG/D
Villingen/D
Berlin/D
Hamburg/D
Rostock/D
Danzig/D
Pfaffenhofen/D
Reutlingen/D
Munich/D
Russelsheim/D
Aachen/D
Cologne/D
Saarbrucken/D
***
Mats Up/CH
“Metaphysical Dance Music””
Reot Suhner Quartet...reeds / Colin Vallon..p / Dominic Egli...d /
Patrice Moret...b /Matthias Spillmann...tr
The newformed Group Mats Up 5 is an extraordinary Quintet of the trumpetplayer Matthias Spillmann from Zürich. His four excellent musicians from the up-to-date Swiss Jazzscene - all are leaders of their own renowned Ensembles - translate Spillmann´s lyrical arrangements in a perfect mind. "Metaphysical Dance Music" calls Spillmann his current concept. It describes exactly the target course. Earthy grooves meet levitating quivering harmonic shiftings. Well balanced music for the head and body build up with driving beats und ostinates. All puzzles of the music are coordinate to each other. The both hornmen (Sax/Cl=Reto Suhner) are bosom buddies with extravagant synergetic complementary Instrumental- sound. Pianist Colin Vallon plays his grand piano genial and handle his companions congenial - with a sometimes classical keystroke - with african and easteuropean manipulated sound alienation. For the grounding care Bassist Patrice Moret with voluminous controlled String-attacks and drummer Dominik Egli with nuancened and highexplosiv cymbel colours.
This music is a hot active vulcano on a deep black soulful ground - straight ahead, honestly and virtuos without any compromises.
Video & Musicdownload
http://www.matsup.ch/presse_video.html
http://www.matsup.ch/download/
user: matsup
pass: down4me
12 - 31 October
15 - 10 Aarau/CH
???
22 – 10 Lucerne/CH
???
Option
Konstanz/D
***
Malcolm Braff Trio (CH)
“Yele”
Malcolm Braff Piano //Alex Blake Contrabass // Yaya Ouattara Percussion
Lots of musicians master their technical genre and their instrument to perfection, but there are only few who go beyond that with
their unique individuality. Thanks to pure energy, sheer personality and authority regarding spiritually inspired rhythms, Malcolm
Braff is one of them. He has created a new category of pianist. With him, the piano keyboard sounds as if it is an extension of himself. He has created his own, huge world on this instrument! His improvisations are sensual power plays and delicate contemplative masterpieces in one. Whether gospel-like or Coltrane-inspired, he sounds the depths and shallows of quasi magical-religious knowledge of rhythms and harmony like a shaman. The shaman is an intermediary between the worlds of transcendental and human societies. With experience from 3 continents: birth and early childhood in Brazil, youth in
Senegal and currently living in French Switzerland, Braff has collected a universal feeling inside him that surges forth during live acts as ecstatically hymnal stories that put his audience into trance-like states.
What we find all over is music full of stories with healing properties. What more could a listening soul wish for? This is even balm
for atheist performance organisers!
Malcolm Braff Trio /CH
CD-Release “Yele”
2009
aprés concertacion
27 Octobre – 08 Novembre
27 – 10 Munich/D
28 – 10???
29 – 10 Lausanne/CH
30 – 10 Arbon/CH
???
05 - 11 Helmbrechts/D
06 - 11 Esslingen/D
07 - 11 Maribor/SI
???
***
Bänz Oester ... bass violon
The liberation from a condition of dependence, disfranchisement or oppression is characterized as emancipation. The contrabass in
jazz already has behind it a history of emancipation: from that of formalist, “pure” harmonically founded time keeper to one of a equal solo
instrument within the ensemble. Liberated and individual, multifaceted and colorful are some ways to describe the bass sound of Bänz Oester.
His very own path through the oft-performed material has developed into a travel of discovery far beyond any sort of jazz patterns. Crossing borders, he developed his style to a global extent from the alpine melodies of his homeland all the way to the musical wonders of the earth. Thus his bass sometimes sounds like an oud with Arabic, or a cora with African, or a koto with pentatonic, or even like a berimbau with Brazilian connotations. Via tonal ingenuity, rhythmic gestures, the energy of phrasing and the volume of the vibrating strings, he builds percussive miniatures up to orchestral monuments. More than only four strings always fill the tonal spaces with innovative articulations. With virtuosity Bänz Oester also controls the poles of the instrument above and below the bridges. Magic magnetism orients the listening habits of the audience, who get involved with the music, anew.
Without the help of any electronics and with new playing techniques, Bänz Oester demonstrates an innovative style of playing the bass, which c
aptivates due to its clarity and emotional riches.
With this in mind: bass solo, or better, Bänz solo.
CD-Release
“Blosperment Suite”
2009/2010
by arrangement
26.09. Yverdon-les-Bains/CH
***
Tomas Sauter & Daniel Schläppi (CH)
"Indian summer"
Tomas Sauter ... Guitar//Daniel Schläppi ... doublebass
Musicdownload
http://www.tomassauter.com/locker/indiansummer
name:indiansummer
pw:flytoget
The duo of Tomas Sauter and Daniel Schläppi, which is currently on tour with their program
“Indian Summer.” can be booked through me. Both musicians play intimate, chamber music-like jazz at the highest level and make both their public and trade magazines ecstatic (see the information enclosed). If desired, demo
CDs can be obtained from me.
by arrangement
***
Tomas Sauter Magic Carpet (CH)
“Magic Carpet”
TOMAS SAUTER electric & acoustic guitars//DOMENIC LANDOLF tenor sax, clarinets//DANIEL SCHLÄPPI doublebass//JULIAN SARTORIUS drums
Musicdownload
http://www.tomassauter.com/locker/magiccarpet
name: magiccarpet
pw:shift
Guitar player TOMAS SAUTER has been drawing some attention with exceptionally inspired compositions for quite a while now. He even achieves to make the new and strange sound familiar. If you become engrossed in his music, a mystic veil of exotic beauty will enthrall you. The songs captivate discreet subtlety, they are well-rounded, perfect in form and let you forget that they make highest demands formally, metrically and harmonically. Sauter is a magician of motives and melodies, but he’s also a sorcerer of grooves who knows how to interweave composition and improvisation in a singular way. “Magic Carpet” signifi es inspired composer Tomas Sauter unrolling, with his compositions, the red carpet for dancing with a top-notch quartet of accomplished European musicians. High-fl yer DOMENIC LANDOLF on saxophone and clarinet sails off as a prima ballerina, a real ingenious mind and astounding improviser. It is a real pleasure and a spectacular and lasting experience to immerse one’s self in the flow of ideas of this jazz dervish. The duos of clarinet and guitar are paired together in an enchanting beauty. Further aboard there is the vigorous drummer JULIAN SARTORIUS. His stylistically-appropriate handling of forms, grooves and dynamics have made him a sideman in demand with many formations of high repute. His authentic antipode and driving aggregate of this section is bassist DANIEL SCHLÄPPI who creates a solid basis and also sets his marks as a soloist. This companion of Sauter of many years has already drawn attention as a leader of his own groups – a bass player who understands how to bring himself into the music. Among this illustrious circle of musicians Sauter acts as primus inter pares. The captain distinguishes himself with his elegiac solos as an unpretentious storyteller, never straying from a compositional idea, but developing it into intricate dimensions and drawing strong images with unequivocal statements, free from slush and stereotype.
by arrangement
2009
11 - 22 Novembrer
???
14 – 11 Bielle/CH
???
19 – 11 BaleCH
???
21 – 11 Nurembourg/D
22 – 11 Rüsselsheim/D
???
&
2010
18 - 21 March
???
&
22 - 25 April
???
2009/2010
Option
Helmbrechts/D
Zurich/CH
Reutlingen/D
Reut/D
Neunkirchen/D
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Elina Duni Quartett (CH)
“Baresha”
Elina Duni...voice//Colin Vallon...piano /Bänz Oester...double bass//Norbert Pfammatter...drums
www.myspace.com/elinaduni
www.elinaduni.com
What a treasure of experience must be on hand in Elina Duni, who, at 26 years of age, has a scale of feelings that appears endless and an unbelievable lightness of singing at all depths of sensation. Here are a few possible explanations: born in communist Albania in a liberal artist’s home with a predilection for Italian and American music, and after her parents’ divorce, she grew up happily with her great parents and her extended family. She sang in public for the first time at five years of age.At 11 she moved to Switzerland with her mother. She discovers western pop music (BEATLES & JANIS JOPLIN) and begins a classic education on the piano in Geneva. The epiphany comes when she hears MILES DAVIS’ Kind of Blue, which definitively determines her further musical path. A return to Albania as a jazz singer and actress, a stay in New York and jazz studies in Bernare further stations in the life of this full-blooded artist. Today Elina Duni finds her way back to her musical roots with her own band – a megaquartett of the current Swiss jazz scene(with Colin Vallon on piano, Bänz Oester on bass and Norbert Pfammatter on drums). How natural everything seems – the melting pot of traditional melodies including diverse compound meters of her homeland and its neighbors, French chansons from GAINS-BOURG & FERRÉ, the jazz jewel “Solitary Moon,” first sung by Shirley Horn and freely associated passages – reminding one of Norway’s vocal exports. Everything disparate is held together by a polyglot singer, who - fabulating Albanian-orientally - has the seven wonders of the vocal world as her emblem. Her intonation stands on secure foundations like the pyramids from Giseh. Simi-lar to the “Hanging Gardens of Babylon” the opulent modulation of her voice is trained in melismas. At the temple of Artmis in Ephesus, we also find a pleasingly balanced space for improvisation. Secretive Eros with his brother Thanatos, full of yearning, are associated with the mausoleum from Halikarnoassos. Just as the Colossus from Rhodos, the volume of the voice, rises above everything else, so does its timbre point to the cult image of Zeus in Olympia, which consists of the most different materials and nuances of color. And the articulation is of impressive brilliance in its functionality like the lighthouse from Pharos.
CD-Release
“Baresha”
by arrangement
2009
01 - 07 Maribor/SI
08 - 08 Morges/CH
28 - 08 Willisau/CH
03 - 13 September
???
07 – 09 Solothurn/CH
???
14 - 18 September
14 - 09 Munich/D
15 - 09 Landsberg/D
16 - 09 Furstenfeldbruck/D
17 - 09 Gauting/D
?? 18 ??
19 November – 13 Dezember
19 - 11 Regensburg/D
20 - 11 Raab/A
21 - 11 Otelfingen/CH
???
28 - 11 Northeim/D
29 - 11 Wiesbaden/D
???
05 - 12 Villingen/D
???
09 - 11 Brixen/I
???
2010
20 – 28 February
???
&
08 – 25 April
???
&
13 – 24 May
???
14 - 05 BaleCH
15. - 05 Bale/CH
???
19 - 05 BruxellesB tbc
20 - 05 Charleville-Mézières/F
21 - 05 Duren/D
???
L ´Option
Yverdon-les.Bains/CH
Erlangen/D
Uster/CH
Ulm/D
Tilburg/NL
Hilden/D
Dudelange/LU
Vienne/A
Langenau/D
Raab/A
Lambach/A
Kulak/CH
Nidau/CH
Heidenheim/D
Köln/D
Oslo/N
Bad Ischl/A
Schweinfurt/D
Ptjui/SI
Schwäbisch – Hall /D
Magdeburg/D
Winterthur/CH
Rüti/CH
summer
Flensburg/D
Bad Wildungen/D
Odessa/UA, Festival tbc
Chisinau/MD, Festival tbc
Bordeaux/F
mit freundlichen Grüßen//with best regards//cheers
cordialement//cordialemente//vennlig hilsen
Mången hälsning//vriendelijke groeten//Pagarbiai
S pozdravom//Beste hilsen//Parimat
Terveisin//varma hälsningar
Stefan Nauheimer
Agentur Fischermann
Wilhelm - Sollmann - Str. 18
D - 50737 Köln
info@agentur-fischermann.de
tel 0049 - 221 9711799
mob 0049 - 177 3268527
Agentur Fischermann, Köln*Cologne*Colonia*Keulen
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