Klaus Bru Elastic Standards

“Good songs are elastic!” Take this as the motto for the new project of widely-travelled, now London-based German C-saxophonist Klaus Bru. ”Elastic Standards” promises adventurous excursions into the musical unknown, — based on tunes from the Great American Songbook which became Jazz standards. The line-up is London-based, the spirit is international: Nikos Ziarkas (Greece) and Aleph Aguiar (Venezuela) on guitars, Derin Bayhan (Turkey) on drums, plus Klaus Bru’s electrified saxophones. Elastic Standards is field research in music, a quality control lab for time-tested songs and unforgettable melodies, a pilot study, an evaluation of what is left to be done with musical material that is soaked to the brim with tradition, an investigation into how much flexing a good song can withstand before it becomes unrecognisable. Aside from that, ”Elastic Standards” is about worship, adoration, exaltation, and praise! It celebrates timeless songs of love, love, love, and love only, because love is the only thing that matters in Hollywood, on Broadway, in life. Last but not least, “Elastic Standards” is about saying ‘Thank you’. So, cheers to the composers and lyricists of Tin Pan Alley, who didn’t know that one day their works would be massaged, hammered on, softly stabbed and tenderly choked, violently kissed and meticulously dissected, undressed and camouflaged by a German saxophonist and his fellow musicians.

Klaus Bru – C Saxophones. German-born saxophonist Klaus Bru plays the rare C-melody sax and the even rarer C-soprano sax exclusively. He has traveled widely, for real and in music. His artistic output is characterised by its variety, and musical concepts that are not exactly the “out-of-the-box” type. Instead, Klaus Bru prefers to use combinations of “boxes” that differ in size, contrast in contents, and clash in colour: He brings in folk music from Eastern Europe, Turkey, and China, avantgarde ridden improv, cold blooded electronic noises and feedbacks, sounds of breath and saliva, pitches smaller than the distance between two keys on the piano, strange meters and odd tempos, plus – when the time is right – singable melodies that move the heart and soul.

Nikos Ziarkas – Guitar. Nikos was born in Rhodes Greece in 1992. At the age of 8 he took up the Greek lute (laouto), learning traditional Greek music, and at the same time studying Classical Music theory. At the age of 12, he started taking electric guitar lessons and courses in jazz harmony. After graduating from the Music High school of Rhodes in 2010, he moved to London to study guitar, as well as composition, harmony, improvisation and orchestration at the Jazz department of Middlesex University, from which he graduated in 2014. He has collaborated with artists such as James Allsop, Alex Bonney, Jasper Høiby, Asaf Sirkis, Sam Leak, George Crowley, Olie Brice, Andreas Polyzogopoulos, Aleksandros Miaris, Dimitris Vassilakis. He is a member of the contemporary Cretan folk band Balothizer, and the trio of acclaimed violinist Michalis Kouloumis. Together with his brother, he leads Valia Calda, a quintet oscillating between Free Improvisation, Jazz, and ethnic music from Southern Europe.

Aleph Aguiar – Guitar. Aleph Aguiar was born in Caracas, Venezuela. He started his career at a young age, playing professionally with the Venzuelan folk band Luango at the age of 12. He moved to Barcelona in his late teens and enrolled at the prestigious Taller de Musics school to study contemporary music and Jazz. In Barcelona he worked with well-known singers Simon Diaz, Gemma Abrié and Cris Verneda, as well as touring and playing festivals. Aleph, now London based, runs his own project Pataruco, which fuses Afro-Venezuelan music and contemporary Jazz. He can be regularly heard at London jazz clubs. Every Monday night he hosts the outstanding jam session at the KPH pub in Ladbroke Grove.

Derin Bayhan – Drums. Derin Bayhan is from Istanbul,. He has played with almost everybody in the Turkish Jazz scene, most notably with his long-time collaborator Sarp Maden (guitar) with whom he recorded 3 albums. He’s been playing in international festivals and recording with artists both in Turkey and internationally. Derin moved to London in 2015. Currently, he is a member of Gilad Atzmon’s Orient House Ensemble Band.