Europe Jazz Media Chart - July 2022

Lying on the ground, listening to headphones while doing nothing...

Rembrandt Frerichs departs from traditional jazz patterns, ensuring that his work is communicative and enjoyable for both listeners and performers. The music we hear here is full of lightness, temperament and spaciousness. Perfectly played and great sounding solo parts are very ordered and you don't hear at the first moment that they are improvised. It is an extraordinary project, a unique album, a jewel, a "must have" for any fan of good music.

It would be hard to count all the records with Krzysztof Komeda’s music released posthumously, not to mention the new interpretations which seem to appear endlessly. And just when you start to think that this area has been fully explored, there is always a new Komeda project lurking around the corner. But the truth is the legendary Polish pianist and composer Krzysztof Komeda has released only three full LPs during his lifetime – “Ballet Etudes” (Danish Metronome, 1963), his most famous “Astigmatic” (Polish Jazz vol. 5, 1965), and „Meine Süsse Europäische Heimat” (Columbia/EMI). The latter was a jazz and poetry session produced by Joachim-Ernst Berendt in Baden-Baden in June 1967, before Komeda’s final departure for Hollywood. The sensational news is that now, 55 years later, it came to light that Komeda had prepared for the project more compositions than just those that made it to the wax. Six unknown pieces (only sheet music) have been discovered in the archives of the National Library in Warsaw! Trumpeter Piotr Schmidt decided to record these compositions with his own arrangements, trying to capture Komeda’s original spirit. In this effort he has received support of the first-class players making up the Piotr Schmidt International Sextet. The team include the leader on trumpet, Kęstutis Vaiginis on saxophones, David Dorużka on guitar, Paweł Tomaszewski on piano, Michał Barański on bass, and Sebastian Kuchczyński on drums, with two American musicians guesting on some of the pieces: Harish Raghavan on bass and Jonathan Barber on drums. The result is the uncanny “Komeda Unknown 1967”, just released by SJR Records.

«Conventional» is a brilliant record from one of the world's most creative (jazz) pianists and some of his musical friends in Copenhagen. The songs with the band sound all the way like something you only hear in a strange dream after you have been drinking too much, while his variations on Joseph Haydn's "Arietta" shows what an eminent pianist Jeppe Zeeberg is, and what a creative force he is. . An uninhibited and beautiful record that most people with ears should check out!

Moskus is an augmented piano, bass and drums trio who play über-genre music. The outcome is a voluntary free fall based on the musicians' free will. The sounds and rhythms are rich though not quite conventional.

This is the first live recording by the Espen Eriksen Trio taken from concerts at the Nasjonal Jazzscene and Propeller Music Division in Oslo, and one from Era Jazzu/Czas Poznan, Poland.  Andy Sheppard plays on three of the seven tracks continuing a well-established relationship with the trio that goes back to 2016; his voice on the saxophone fits extremely well with the melodic and lyrical 'less is more' approach of the trio.  The repertoire is taken from the trio's previous five albums, but concludes with a version of Krzysztof Komeda´s iconic Rosemary´s Baby.

With Ensamble Grande, the Mexican bassist and composer living in Amsterdam has achieved a great feat. She presents a music inspired by her personal roots (Mexico) in a narrative that takes from improvised jazz as well as from contemporary vocal music. Not to mention her qualities as a musician, who can rely on serious double bass playing to breathe life into her international and atypical ensemble. She is an artist to follow.