Jorge Rossy / Robert Landfermann / Jeff Ballard - Puerta (November 5, 2021 ECM)

Jorge Rossy turns to vibraphone and marimba and delivers a trio set filled with momentous originals for his ECM leader-debut. Marked by their immediate melodic appeal, the vibraphonist’s lines are in lively interplay with his colleagues, Robert Landfermann on bass and Jeff Ballard on drums. After Jorge’s recent contribution on drums to Jakob Bro’s trio with trumpeter Arve Henriksen on Uma Elmo, the present line-up sees him focusing on his own music. On Puerta the Spaniard shines as he navigates a programme that proves him as much an eloquent composer as a powerful melodic voice.

1 POST-CATHOLIC WALTZ (Jorge Rossy) 06:15

2 TAÍNOS (Jorge Rossy) 06:07

3 ADAGIO (Jorge Rossy) 04:47

4 MAYBE TUESDAY (Jorge Rossy) 08:01

5 CARGOLS (Chris Cheek) 04:34

6 SCILLA E CARIDDI (Jorge Rossy) 05:43

7 PUERTA (Jorge Rossy) 03:54

8 S.T. (Jorge Rossy) 05:54

9 VENTANA (Jorge Rossy) 04:21

10 ADIÓS (Jorge Rossy) 04:35

Jorge Rossy   Vibraphone and Marimba

Robert Landfermann   Double Bass

Jeff Ballard   Drums and Percussion

PREORDER

CONCERTS

January 06 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Porgy & Bess Vienna Austria

January 07 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Woippy, Atrium Metz France

January 08 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Sunside Club Paris France

January 09 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club London United Kingdom

January 11 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Fasching Stockholm Sweden

January 12 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Zig Zag Jazz Club Berlin Germany

January 13 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Kofferfabrik Fürth Germany

January 14 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Domicil Dortmund Germany

January 15 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Lantaren/Venster Rotterdam Netherlands

January 16 Jorge Rossy/Robert Landfermann/Jeff Ballard Bimhuis Amsterdam Netherlands

November 18 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Festival Bielsko Biala Poland

January 18 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Fossé des Treize Strasbourg France

January 19 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Bee-Flat-Turnhalle Bern Switzerland

January 20 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Flagey Brussels Belgium

January 21 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/ orge Rossy De Roma Antwerp Belgium

January 22 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Bilderhaus Gschwend Germany

February 24 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Domicil Dortmund Germany

February 25 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Bimhuis Amsterdam Netherlands

February 26 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Cultural Center of Echternach Echternach Luxembourg

March 15 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Bijloke Gent Belgium

March 18 Jakob Bro/Arve Henriksen/Jorge Rossy Bergamo Jazz Festival Bergamo Italy

Luís Lopes Lisbon Berlin Quartet - Sinister Hypnotization (June 2021 clean feed records)

Luis Lopes’ Lisbon Berlin Quartet immediately references the residences of the contributing musicians, Lopes and Rodrigo Pinheiro from Lisbon, Robert Landfermann and Christian Lillinger from Berlin, but there’s more than this that feeds the specific urban relations of this music. To say each is a city with a past, is understatement. If Berlin will loom larger in general histories, from the nightmare of Nazism and the following decades of division, the wall and the refined horrors of the Stasi, Lisbon has a special claim on duplicity, given the half-century reign of the Salazar dictatorship, a fascist regime that preferred relationships with major Western ‘democracies’_ England, America_ which in turn found secret police, torture and oppression easily overlooked for an ally in the war against communism. It was a duplicity that once made Lisbon an espionage hub, a network of spies, lies and conspiracies as much as a city. 

Lopes’ Lisbon Berlin references all of that indirectly, but it’s a contemporary vision—forcefields and fault lines, underground and skyline, alive from road to rail to phone to rail to phone to cloud, all that data congealing in space, messages breaking up into compound futurities.

The band exercises a brilliant fury, parts mirror one another, sounds may be distinct_ there’s definitely something special about Landfermann’s upright bass, often bowed but through pedals and amp creating a hybrid monster of acoustic and electronic genes_but it’s the wild reflective possibilities of all those high-volume sounds, bouncing off studio walls at a pace in which sonic after-images present undreamed of future cities, third-world Metropolises with contemporary social problems wed to future mutations.

Pinheiro, elsewhere master of a certain contemporary classicism, here pursues his own electronic bent, a happy partner and prod to Lopes’ amplified kinetics, while Lillinger, here and elsewhere, exercises a combination of chance and precision that could make him the defining drummer of a generation.

1. Identification 03:38

2. O Andróide que Sonhava Ser Humano 08:17

3. Sinister Hypnotization 13:10

4. Werther's Memories 04:38

5. Berlin Line (Picture of Berlin in Three Movements) 07:45

Luís Lopes electric guitar

Rodrigo Pinheiro fender rhodes

Robert Landfermann double bass (with effects)

Christian Lillinger drums

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Ralph Beerkircher - Beerkircher​ / ​Lindner​ / ​Werner​ /​ Landfermann (June 2021)

Ralph Beerkircher is a guitarist and composer.

Active with his own formations and since 99´ in groups such like Novotnik44, Schiiik, shraeng (electric-guitar-duo with F. Wingold), Arnie Bolden, Kahlenborn Trio amongst others.

1. Feed 01:21

2. Glas 03:53

3. Wén 05:08

4. Sketch#2 02:27

5. Feed the 01:07

6. Sketch#3 11:11

7. XIII 06:12

8. Distorted 07:14

9. Feed the Beast 03:30

Ralph Beerkircher - electric guitar & electronic devices

Axel Lindner - violin & viola

Holger Werner - clarinet & bassclarinet

Robert Landfermann - double bass

Track 2,4,6,7,9 by R.Beerkircher/Track 3,8 by A. Lindner/Track1,5 by all

Recorded at loftkoeln & mastered by Stefan Deistler

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Philipp Gropper’s Philm - Live At Bimhuis (WHY PLAY JAZZ 2018)

"Live At Bimhuis" is Philipp Gropper and Philm’s astounding interim statement on the way to new musical heights, a statement of unexpected density, exceptional use of dynamics, sustained emphasis on and sensibility to the details. Done with directness, purity and presence.

Philipp Gropper’s Philm is underway, propelling itself to ever new heights. This forceful quartet takes off with a bursting energy that surges forth throughout their live performances. And so it was during Philm’s tour following the release of their “Sun Ship” album; they amazed festival audiences in Moers, Dobbia, and Ljubiana. They played to standing ovations at Amsterdam’s iconic Bimhuis jazz club. And the journey continues.

Before the band heads into the studio in April 2018 to record a completely new program, the uncut live recording of that Amsterdam concert will be released as the link between “Sun Ship” and the upcoming recording. “Live At Bimhuis” documents the band’s masterful use of dynamics and their emphasis on directness, purity, and presence. There is an improvised balance, a sensitive awareness of the details, as they thrust their way forward. This extraordinary band also takes up and reassembles material from their previous albums "Licht" and "The Madman of Naranam", ingeniously shinning new light on the pieces.

Philm forges music that bursts forth with unexpected intensity and consequence. Through the band’s insistently sharp, cutting agitation, the music comes more and more into focus. It reaches into the essence, the core, through a process that, with passionate urgency, opens up that core for all to hear. With Philm’s understanding that something only becomes exciting when it is no longer arbitrary, it shifts the boundaries of how we listen.

The tenor saxophonist is underway with Elias Stemeseder on piano and synthesizer, drummer Oliver Steidle and bassist Robert Landfermann. Philipp Gropper’s compositions are not written for some anonymous sideman, rather, they center around each player’s character. Urgent, threatening and dense, the music extends beyond a mere sum of its parts; it exhibits a collective compactness roaming over ever-new terrain on which abstraction and earthy sensuality are no longer opposites. The music is layered in such a manner that new space may be found and occupied.

Philm speaks with an urgency that springs from an inner desire to say what needs to be said. The band does that self-reliantly, without compromise. The group speaks directly to our time, something that the listener intuitively senses. A stellar moment for German jazz, to say the least.

Concerts 2018

Jun 02, 2018 - Bergen, NO @ Nattjazz Festival

Aug 03, 2018 - Berlin, DE @ A'Larme Festival

Sun Ship (Part 1)  9:45

Sun Ship (Part 2)  10:49

Ze  10:56

Who Owns The World? (Part 1)  5:11

Who Owns The World? (Part 2)  6:06

J (Part 3)  5:13

Licht  7:10

Philipp Gropper (tenor sax, composition)

Elias Stemeseder (piano, synthesizer)

Robert Landfermann (bass)

Oliver Steidle (drums)

Recorded July 30th, 2017 by Marc Schots at BIMHUIS, Amsterdam (Netherlands)

Mixed and Mastered by Martin Ruch at Control Room Berlin (Germany)

Design and artwork by Travassos

Kathrin Pechlof Trio - Toward the Unknown (PIROUET RECORDS 2018)

The harp has never had a major role in jazz, but then again, harpist Kathrin Pechlof’s music encompasses more than jazz. Her success in both traditional and contemporary classical music, her venture into a jazzy version of Bavarian folk music and the Avant-pop of Cosmic Groove Orchestra led to her consequent turn towards contemporary jazz and work with such players as Pablo Held, Niels Klein, and Sebastian Gille. Such a background lends a depth and breadth to Pechlof’s play that places her in the forefront of the new generation of innovative musicians. Pechlof’s trio of like-minded musicians alto saxophonist/composer Christian Weidner and bassist Robert Landfermann has been testing musical borders for some seven years. Jazzthing depicted their first PIROUET album, Imaginarium, as “chamber music worlds of quiet beauty and understated elegance”. On their new PIROUET CD, the three guide the listener towards the beauty and challenge of the unexpected.

Silence Is A Looking Bird

Fuge

Elegie

Feldfolge

Thema und Variation

Earth

Toward The Unknown

Versuch

Made Up Animals

Kathrin Pechlof - harp

Robert Landfermann - double bass

Christian Weidner - alto sax

Pablo Held Trio - Investigations (EDITION RECORDS April 23, 2018)

Pablo Held’s releases his landmark 10th album ‘Investigations’ on his new home and international label Edition Records, marking the progression of a new, global trajectory for this supremely talented musician. 

Pablo Held piano / Robert Landfermann double bass / Jonas Burgwinkel drums

Regarded as one of the most talented and adventurous pianists and improvisors in Europe, Pablo Held releases in April 2018 his landmark 10th album Investigations. Featuring long-standing trio of bassist, Robert Landfermann and drummer, Jonas Burgwinkel, the album is his first for British imprint Edition Records. A pivotal album in the trio’s journey, the trio’s adventurous spirit and energy reaches global audiences and with the release of ‘Investigations’ ignite a new wave of interest for a true working band. 

“The beautiful music of the Pablo Held Trio strikes me as an important example of the evolution of the piano trio in jazz. They embody the poetry and depth of this tradition, while extending the harmonic and rhythmic possibilities of the tradition. The music of this trio brings me joy knowing that this great art form continues to grow and flourish.” Ralph Towner

1. Investigations

2. Dr. Freeds

3. I’ll Dream of Flowers

4. Yearning

5. Stubborn

6. April Sonne

7. Birkenhain

8. Haiku Kit

9. Pinatubo (Bonus Track)

10. Sonja’s Rumba (Bonus Track)

Recorded at Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal, Cologne by Christian Heck from August 30th till September 2nd 2017 

Mixed by Oliver Bergner on December 13th & 14th 2017 

Mastered by Christoph Stickel on December 17th & 18th 2017

Nathan Ott Quartet - The Cloud Divers (UNIT RECORDS 2018)

The Nathan Ott 4tet, founded in 2014 by the Hamburg-based drummer and composer Nathan Ott, is inspired by the idea of mixing generations of jazz musicians in a remarkable constellation of artists. Most prominently it features the U.S. American- Saxophonist Dave Liebman, whose distinct way of playing in a pianoless quartet-setting melts with the haunting tone of Sebastian Gille (Hamburger Jazzpreis 2015) into an unmistakable texture of sound. David Liebman is considered a renaissance man in contemporary music, with a career stretching nearly fifty years. He has played with many of the great masters of the genre, including Miles Davis, Elvin Jones, Chick Corea, John McLaughlin, McCoy Tyner and others. Together with Cologne-based and in-demand bass player Robert Landfermann (John Scofield, Pablo Held), one of the driving forces of the European avantgarde jazz / improvised music scene, the band met first in 2014 playing Ott’s very personal compositions. The premiere was a big success and led to a two-day recording session in Berlin, which is going to be released on Nathan Ott’s Debut Record in 2017.

Dave Liebman - ss,ts

Sebastian Gille - ts

Robert Landfermann - b

Nathan Ott - dr

All compositions by Nathan Ott except „Fancy Free“ by Donald Byrd (Elgy Music, BMI) and Frank Foster (Swing that Music, Inc., ASCAP) and „Nebula“by Dave Liebman (Liebstone Music-BMI)

Recorded March 2016 at p4 Studios Berlin

Engineer: Oliver Bergner

Mixed by Oliver Bergner

Mastered by Chris von Rautenkranz

Cover Photography: Kuki Walsch

Liner Photos: Kai Ehlers

Design: Hartmut Sawatzky

Produced by Nathan Ott