Marcin Wasilewski Trio & Athina Kontou »Mother«

Marcin Wasilewski Trio & Athina Kontou »Mother«

One special quality of jazz is the spontaneous interplay between personalities who are on an equal footing. If the different players blend with each other musically as they do in the Marcin Wasilewski Trio, it’s almost as if they were flying together. The trio composed of Marcin Wasilewski, Slawomir Kurkewicz and Michail Miskiewicz began its international career in 2004 at the side of trumpeter Tomasz Stanko, so that they are now celebrating 30 years as a jazz trio at this NDR concert. After the interval, Greek bass player Athina Kontou appears as part of the quintet »Mother«. The title song of Athina Kontou’s album »Tzivaeri« could hardly be more relevant to our times. In this traditional lament from the Aegean, a mother thinks of her child that she sent out of the country to make sure it had a better life. The Greek word »tzivaeri« means jewel, and has its roots in the Turkish, Arabic and Persian languages. And Athina Kontou doesn’t only support international understanding in linguistic terms: the bass player, who studied jazz in Leipzig and Weimar, forges musical links with her band »Mother«. Her acclaimed debut album features Turkish and Thracian folk dances as well as the »Greek blues« known as rembetiko. Jazz is present in any case in the sound of the prepared piano played by Lucas Leidinger, in Dominik Mahnig’s sensitive drum sound and in the different saxophones played by Luise Volkmann. Master lutenist Koray Berat Sari makes Mother into a quintet with music full of deep melancholy as well as jubilant joie de vivre. German weekly paper Die Zeit described »Tziveari« enthusiastically as »effervescent, gleaming, thrilling«.

JazzKLUB / Marcin Masecki Trio / Thelonious Monk’s New Incarnation

„He’s got time!” is what Tomasz Stańko used to say about Thelonious Monk, but he could just as well say the same about Marcin Masecki. „He has time” – meaning that he is its master, stretching it or condensing it, with disregard for any rules whatsoever, except those he created himself. Monk felt the basic dimension of reality and expressed it in his music unlike anyone else – so it is with Masecki. The artistic kinship between the two artists is striking, with their special sense for timing enhanced by the propensity for dissonance, so characteristic for both. They could not meet – Monk passed away in February of 1982 and Masecki was born in September the same year. In the concert, however, the Polish pianist is going to converse with his American predecessor. And there is so much they have to say to one another. Tomasz Gregorczyk Concert duration: approximately 90 minutes

Marcin Kydryński

JOOLAEE TRIO

Persian and European classical music, traditional songs from Turkey and Azerbaijan, jazz, and more: the Joolaee Trio’s concert programs combine a range of diverse musical influences. In their unusual lineup consisting of kamancheh player and leader Misagh Joolaee, percussionist Sebastian Flaig, and pianist Schaghajegh Nosrati—who will also be heard at the Pierre Boulez Saal with a solo recital in February—they perform original compositions and newly created arrangements.

Avishai Cohen Trio

It goes without saying that The Concertgebouw and jazz & pop music make a perfect combination. The stages of both the Main Hall and the Recital Hall have borne witness to nearly the whole of jazz history. Sarah Vaughan and Ella Fitzgerald have both performed here, as have Miles Davis and Louis Armstrong. Famous pop stars and bands that have graced the stage of the Main Hall include Frank Zappa, the Doors and the Eagles, to name but a few. Legendary concerts, in the present as well as the past.

Brad Mehldau Trio

Brad Mehldau is without doubt one of the most successful jazz pianists of our time. He has been one of the most regular guests at the Elbphilharmonie since the venue first opened its doors, and was even the first improvisor to give a solo concert here. Since then he has kept causing a stir in Hamburg, be that as a solo artist, in a trio or as part of special projects such as the one with the British tenor Ian Bostridge. This time, Mehldau performs in a traditional piano trio with the young bassist Felix Moseholm from Denmark and the Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy – an old friend who was a member of the fixed trio with which Mehldau played his way into jazz’s top tier. In his always unpredictable concert programmes, Mehldau blends pearls from the Great American Songbook, his own works, interpretations of songs from the worlds of pop and independent and the classical repertoire. The result is always something unique, something entirely his own, and that using every trick in the book. Alongside his old buddy Jorge Rossy, an inventive, finely responsive drummer, he is also joined by the newcomer Felix Moseholm on the bass. He comes from Copenhagen, and a great uncle of his played the jazz bass before him, with legends such as Eric Dolphy. Moseholm performed with Mehldau for the first time in 2020 – when he was just 23 years old.

Micah Thomas Trio

»Music is a meditative practice for me. I attach importance to the main focus of always being present.« This is how Micah Thomas describes the relationship to his purpose in life. The 27-year-old is currently one of the most sought-after pianists on the New York jazz scene, widely admired for his understanding of harmonies and his technical brilliance. His first trio album »Reveal« with Dean Torrey and Kayvon Gordon radiates casual aplomb and detailed knowledge of jazz history, which the trio expands on with sparkling virtuosity in its collective. »Reveal is a type of aesthetic declaration that definitively lays the foundation for a unique and innovative ›art of the trio‹,« writes the press and thereby raises the bar for future performances and albums. Micah Thomas, for whom music is a mouthpiece and a very natural form of expression, has so far always exceeded such expectations of his playing. As a result, he has already impressed audiences at the Elbphilharmonie twice: as part of the Ambrose Akinmusire Quartet and as part of the Immanuel Wilkins Quartet, which you could also experience in the Fast Lane series. All good things come in threes? In this case, hopefully even more!

Nduduzo Makhathini Trio

Music is the healing power of the universe, the jazz visionary Albert Ayler once proclaimed on the title of one of this albums. The South African pianist Nduduzo Makhathini seems to be living proof of this perceived truth. After a much observed duo encounter with the Brazilian bandolim player Hamilton de Holanda at the Elbphilharmonie, the charismatic musician is now returning with his trio to showcase his new album, which will be released this autumn. Jazz from South Africa – irrespective of the comparatively few names associated with it, this almost seems to be a genre in its own right. The first mention should go to Abdullah Ibrahim. He created the blueprint for a synthesis of South African roots music and jazz improvisation in the spirit of Duke Ellington under the name »Dollar Brand« in the 1960s. Nduduzo Makhathini also refers to him, but is even more heavily characterised by Bheki Mseleku, the great integrator of township music into the global jazz idiom who died too soon; he was a leading figure from the early 1990s during the last phase of Apartheid in South Africa. Nduduzo Makhathini’s mission is to reconcile the spiritual and physical with each other. He translates the sound character of the Zulu language of his homeland – rhythms and melodies of healing words – to the piano and relates this material using the vocabulary and attitude of John Coltrane and McCoy Tyner. In doing so, he achieves mesmerizingly open, life-affirming and approachable music, weightlessly shrouded in a transcendental ministry. Nduduzo Makhathini’s music is a gift to the world.

Kenny Barron Trio

The name Kenny Barron stands for perfection in jazz piano. The pianist born in Philadelphia in 1943 had his first gigs in his home town when he was just 14 years old. Two years later, he moved to New York City; at 20 years old, he was already playing in Dizzy Gillespie’s quintet, one of the founding fathers of bebop. Since then, he has given concerts or recorded records with more or less all the heroes of jazz. Kenny Barron is one of the great storytellers on his instrument – sensitive, thinking in big arcs, serene. Equally sought after as a soloist, bandleader or guest musician, he proves himself in all situations as an artist of the chamber music format. Two duo formations were legendary in the 1990s: the art of intimate dialogue with tenor saxophonist Stan Getz, later with bassist Charlie Haden, both earned Kenny Barron Grammy nominations. After the impressive Elbphilharmonie debut by the jazz stylist in summer 2022 with his quartet, Kenny Barron now returns to Hamburg in a trio. He has already consistently played together with bassist Kiyoshi Kitagawa, originally from Osaka, and drummer Johnathan Blake for many years – often enough to cultivate a musically close relationship with each other, rarely enough to also still surprise each other time and again.

Sullivan Fortner Trio

You do not have to be born in New Orleans to be able to grasp and play jazz in all its encyclopaedic breadth. That said, it is probably helpful to grow up in the place where jazz was born around 125 years ago and has shaped the lives of the people living there as a kind of mother tongue. Whatever the case, Sullivan Fortner is the latest example of jazz music to come out of New Orleans that is absolutely contemporary and, at the same time, deeply rooted in history. One audience at the Elbphilharmonie has already made the acquaintance of Fortner, born in 1986, as one of the lecturers at its »Jazz Academy« in late summer 2023. And he has been known the world over for many years now, thanks to album releases and video recordings like those where he can be heard alongside the magnificent singer Cécile McLorin Salvant. In their various duo performances, he comes across as a congenial piano partner, bursting with ideas and wit, and always finding different shades and variations on the spur of the moment for his accompaniment. Most recently, Sullivan Fortner released »Solo Game« (2023), an album where he juggles eras, genres and various forms of jazz expression with astonishing ease on the piano. The jazz piano guru Brad Mehldau recently heard him play solo in Amsterdam and raved afterwards: »Beyond compare. Many of you will know how unreal his music is... Sullivan just blows me away every time I hear him. He goes deep on all levels – touch, counterpoint, extreme relaxation, swing, the transparency of his ideas, no matter how dense the texture is at any one time. Sullivan takes you with him through the entire emotional spectrum, including uninhibited joyfulness. He is completely rooted and completely independent all at once. He’s revolutionizing jazz piano playing right now. I mean, piano playing in general. Period.«