Two nights of Christian Muthspiel with Franck Tortiller, Steve Swallow and Mathieu Michel.
Seaven Teares – A Tribute to John Dowland
Christian Muthspiel – trombone, piano, e-piano, compositions
Matthieu Michel – trumpet, flugelhorn
Franck Tortiller – vibraphone
Steve Swallow – bass
Recent CD: „Seaven Teares“, ACT 9551-2
“elegantly shifting palette of instrumental colours“
“charming and surprising” (THE GUARDIAN)
“an absorbing listen“ (THE OBSERVER)
(JAZZWISE)
“variety of mood“ (THE TELEGRAPH)
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As long as I can remember, I have always been fascinated by the music of the Renaissance, with its polyphonic interweaving of voices that seemingly float on forever, unimpeded by bar lines. Now, 450 years after the birth of John Dowland, I have embarked with my fellow musicians on yet another journey to explore the ways into which the “Sound of Elisabethan England”, with its sketchy and enigmatic notation, can be translated into today‘s language of jazz. Interestingly, when you compare the stylistics of the modern era with those of the Renaissance, you can see the importance that improvisation has held in the music of Dowland and his contemporaries.
All of the compositions in this recording are based on Dowland‘s “Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares” instrumental cycle, in which seven different types of figurative tears are rendered polyphonically by five violas da gamba and a lute. The metamorphoses I propose stay close to the thematic content of the originals and use the special quality of Dowland’s lines and the resulting harmonies as fundamental structural elements to be rethought, modified and reinterpreted in a new context. In this way, seeds from Dowland’s masterpieces from the turn of the 16th to the 17th century have grown into new works that lie somewhere in the creative field between chamber music and jazz and serve as frameworks for interaction and improvisation within our quartet.
(Christian Muthspiel, translation by Karin Kaminker)
(Please note that there was an error in the article in Jazzwise, calling Christian a guitarist. That in fact is his brother Wolfgang!)
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Support is from Jeff Herr Corporation
The well-travelled, Luxembourg drummer’s own band comes to UK for the first time…presenting music from their new album ‘Layer Cake’ released in March 2015.
The new album from the Jeff Herr Corporation, created around the Luxembourg drummer, displays dexterity and solid rhythms from the very first notes. The trio’s fluid power is drawn from their firm rhythmic foundations, tightly arranged and well-structured tracks, and vibrant improvisations, all encompassed within the group’s basic drive of the groove.
With Maxime Bender on saxophone and Laurent Payfert on double bass, this powerhouse trio offers up eleven new compositions by band members, along with a surprising cover of David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World”.
“….drummer Jeff Herr, the powerful motor of a trio that comes in a straight line from Sonny Rollins” Jazz News, France
Biography
Since 2001, Jeff Herr has been performing with many different bands, projects and musicians including Pascal Schumacher, Marc Demuth, Greg Lamy, Ernie Hammes, Johannes Müller, Maxime Bender, Carlo Nardozza, Pascal Mohy, Jef Neve, Christophe Devisscher or Joachim Badenhorst. In 2003, Herr formed the Jeff Herr Corporation, with musicians that he had met during his studies in Maastricht: Carlo Nardozza (trumpet), Joonas Lorenz (Fender Rhodes & synthesizers) and Tom Van Acker (bass). The band released their first album ‘Modern Times’ on Waltzing-Parke Records (WPR) in 2005. A second album, “Conspiracy”, followed in 2007. Since then, the band has been performing widely in Luxembourg, the Benelux, France, Germany, Romania, Greece, Vietnam and Russia. Since 2012, the Jeff Herr Corporation consists of Jeff Herr (drums), Maxime Bender (saxophone) and Laurent Payfert (double bass). Their album “Layer Cake” (distributed and licensed by IGLOO Records/SOWAREX Edition) was released in Europe November 2014 and UK March 2015.
In 2005, Jeff Herr joined the Soul/R’n’B band “Funky P” and is also currently playing with renowned blues guitarist Remo Cavallini, regularly with Austrian singer Shlomit Butbul, singer-songwriter Lata Gouveia, Indian sitar master Pandit Deobrat Mishra and Luxemburg-based Icelandic singer Thorunn. Recently, Herr has been chosen to represent Luxembourg in the “Criss Cross Europe” project a jazz exchange between Belgium, France, Slovakia and Luxembourg.
Supported by MusicLX
