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LP
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EJR 001LP
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In the midst of the pandemic, Enjoy Jazz Festival developed a musical project whose members are recruited new every year and then debut at a concert on UNESCO International Jazz Day, April 30. The members come from the jazz scene of the German state of Baden-Württemberg. Two experienced and renowned band leaders, Alexandra Lehmler and Erwin Ditzner, now curate an annually changing ensemble of outstanding artists of the most diverse provenance. As part of a voluntary commitment, the ensemble is to be organized in a sustainable, diverse, and, in three years at the latest, completely gender-equal and climate-fair manner. Thus, as a commitment to the goals of the "European/Local Green Deal" (and with reference to the jazz standard "On Green Dolphin Street"), the name Green Dolphin Orchestra was created. The project has a free improvisation approach with changing personnel. "We actually even thought of drawing lots for the different formats within the band pool," explains saxophonist Alexandra Lehmler. "We decided against it in the case of the first concert and instead put together curated formations." And drummer Erwin Ditzner adds, "In principle, however, this procedure remains an option." It was important to the two of them to also mix the genres represented by the individual musicians in such a way that free space for something truly new could emerge. The only restriction: a time code was assigned to each sub-project. "Each formation was given a time limit, although it was possible to virtually override this limit by spontaneous reshuffling," says Ditzner, explaining one central of the few rules. "In concrete terms, this meant that after eight minutes, the improvisation in progress was either ended or new musicians simply joined in the ongoing creative process, while others took themselves out of the game." Alexandra Lehmler summarizes the artistic impact of the ensemble as follows: "We really cross-fertilize each other. In order to push this process even further, we forced ourselves when putting together the ensemble not to fall back on our 'favorite playing partners', i.e. musicians with whom one feels particularly at home. In other words, we consciously wanted to step out of our comfort zone with this project." These pieces were recorded live in Heidelberg during the ensemble's premiere concert on the occasion of International Jazz Day on April 30, 2022.
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CD
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EJR 002CD
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They have been working together again and again for more than 20 years and have constantly explored the boundaries of their instructions and not infrequently even expanded them: singer Jutta Glaser and guitarist Claus Boesser-Ferrari. Their current project Return & Crossing is a tribute to the Lebanese-American painter, film artist and poet Etel Adnan. Jutta Glaser and Claus Boesser-Ferrari have opened their music wide to Adnan's poems. In doing so, they have not simply deconstructed their compositions, but, on the contrary, restructured them in a way that floats in the flow of the language, that is, in a peculiarly fluid way. They have deliberately worked in a more sound-painting manner in order to take up the aspect of multiple talents or Etel Adnan's interdisciplinary approach and mirror it in a corresponding art form. Just as Adnan's poetry is always read in a new and different way, so is this music, which is so changeable in itself. Jutta Glaser's singing is a sometimes tender and fragile, sometimes highly expressive, but always respectfully bow to Adnan's texts. Glaser transfers them as virtuously as sensitively into congenial improvisations and alienations, without overstretching the natural richness of the texts' relationships. Claus Boesser-Ferrari, supported by cleverly used electronics, functions here not as an accompanist, but as a second voice in a dialogue of different artistic means and formal languages. The guitarist moves in his usual stylistically confident manner between lyrical sound surfaces, percussive pointing and expressive outbursts. Return & Crossing is a multi-layered dramaturgical production, which not only elaborates the high musicality of Adnan's language, organized in diffuse-open spaces, with love and meticulousness, but also makes it sound as multi-layered as it is rousing.
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CD
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EJR 000CD
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Yuriy Gurzhy, former DJ of the legendary "Russendisko" and co-founder of the multilingual Berlin band RotFront, presented his first book: a fascinating interview volume compiled in a kind of sampling aesthetic on the subject of "Richard Wagner & and the Klezmer Band. In Search of the New Jewish Sound in Germany (Ariella Verlag)." The idea for it arose in a conversation between Gurzhy and Rainer Kern, the director of the Enjoy Jazz Festival. The book quickly attracted keen interest far beyond the feuilletons. And now the soundtrack is available. Yuriy Gurzhy, as a DJ a specialist in the field of compiling, has knowledgeably selected all the pieces himself. A good eclectic mix, ranging from folk to hip-hop. The 18-track CD is also the first release from Enjoy Jazz Records, the new "festival label for jazz and more." At first glance, it may seem irritating that Gurzhy mentions the avowed anti-Semite Richard Wagner and klezmer, i.e. Jewish folk music, in the same sentence. In the "Jüdische Allgemeine" Gurzhy answered the question why he included the German composer in the title of his book. Against this background, by the way, Gurzhy himself provides one of the highlights of the album. For in the RotFront song "Girl from Bayreuth" he bilingually tells the absurdly convoluted story of how a man falls unrequitedly in love with a blond German violinist during a Wagner concert in Tel Aviv and from then on incessantly maltreats his neighbor through the thin walls with a mixture of crying fits and Wagner music. In addition, there is a wonderfully ironic side-splitting by Geoff Berner, performed in a children's song ductus ("Half-German Girlfriend"), a Balkanese brass version of the folk song "Hava Nagila" by Shazalakazoo/Edi Partizani or the organ-soaked rock of Forshpil ("Meydl in di yorn"), of course with guitar solo. Also features Vivian Kanner, Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird, You Shouldn't Know From It, Jewrhythmics, Paul Brody's Sadawi, Solomon & Socalled, Fayvish, Jewdyssee, Jewish Monkeys, KlezCore, The Disorientalists, Andrea Pancur, Yahoodi, and Frank London's Klezmer Brass Allstars.
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