Deutsches Jazzfestival Frankfurt

Hesitating, stumbling over a note... Improvisation is an integral part of guitarist John Scofield's playing, using a whole palette of blues and swing. Of his two accomplices, the virtuoso guitarist often says, "they love the hell out of me."

Terri Lyne Carrington is the author of “New Standards - 101 Lead Sheets by Women Composers”, a collection of compositions written by women. The book gives pride of place to Lil Hardin Armstrong, Alice Coltrane, Melissa Aldana and Cécile McLorin Salvant. Alongside arranger Jim McNeely and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, the American musician also signs new standards.

For the first time in this configuration, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Torsten de Winkel joins forces with four musicians to blend rhythms and sounds from North Africa, the Canary Islands, Iran and India.

Rebecca Trescher, award-winning (bass) clarinettist, loves to make orchestral arrangements for tentet. In the quartet line-up there is even more room for musical dialog and improvisation. Recording from October 28, 2023 at the German Jazz Festival 2023 in Frankfurt.

Cathy Freeman, Australian Olympic champion, was a role model for other Aborigines. Geneticist Rosalind Franklin encouraged many young women to study the natural sciences. These women inspired pianist Anke Helfrich's latest opus, We'll rise - to be released at the same time as the concert.

Once Around the Room (ECM) is a tribute to drummer Paul Motian. With Bill Evans and Scott LaFaro, he showed what sounds his instrument was capable of. Joey Baron and Jorge Rossy take their inspiration from him, and Jakob Bro's folk-inflected guitar and Joe Lovano's delicate saxophone blossom over bass lines by Larry Grenadier, Thomas Morgan and Anders Christensen.

Heidi Bayer's style is absolutely singular: on trumpet and flugelhorn, she has become a figure of contemporary jazz. Since 2018 and the founding of her quartet, Virtual Leak, she has distinguished herself by her gift for transparency and perfect tuning. For this concert, she performs as yet unreleased compositions, due for a studio album to be released in 2024.

Roger Kintopf draws warbling, whistling timbres from his bass, and the four musicians free themselves from tempi, scales and patterns before coming together in a dreamlike, structured confluence - a reference to the title of this project, which exudes warmth despite the partitions that initially drift apart only to find each other again, and the voices that enter into dissonance as they overlap.

Singer Lucia Cadotsch and her accomplice Wanja Slavin - on saxophone and keyboard - accompanied by the Frankfurt Radio Big Band, open the German jazz festival. The two protagonists' project is a synthpop ahead of its time, blending acoustic instruments and digital elements. With the big band, they explore an even wider palette of sounds.