Palmer Edition III: Trinity

Michael Wollny & Joachim Kühn - DUOCD / Vinyl / digital Michael Wollny piano Joachim Kühn  piano Joachim Kühn (b. 1944) and Michael Wollny (b. 1978) are two of the leading lights of the European jazz piano. The playing of each of them is unmistakable, their approaches to making music are completely individual, and in a whole multitude of ways. As outstanding virtuosos, they are both capable of finding stylistic pathways to connect the most diverse areas of contemporary music. They both have alert and enormously creative minds, together with a protean capacity to listen and respond with the right thing at the right moment, something which is going to surprise each other. Together, Kühn and Wollny cover a wide range of original compositions and a version of Ornette Coleman's "Somewhere". At the end, they come together for a joint requiem for Joachim's brother Rolf.These two improvising pianists have wordless ways of communicating and intuitive ways of finding consensus, whether they are dealing with very basic things or huge amounts of detail. They work on their combined music like two sculptors chiselling on the same sculpture. Sometimes everything is quite clear, sometimes it is impossible to distinguish who is in the foreground and who is in the background, who is playing on the left and who is on the right. This album is released in co-operation with Château Palmer. Credits: Produced by the artists

high-download powered by Qobuz

Lars Danielsson - Palmer Edititon II: TrioCD / Vinyl / digital Lars Danielsson double bass & cello Verneri Pohjola trumpet John Parricelli guitar Commitment, consistency and a strong forward-thinking spirit. These are the core values which connect ACT, one of Europe’s leading labels "in the spirit of jazz", with Château Palmer, one of the most mythical Grands Crus from Bordeaux’s Left Bank. The partnership between them combines their worlds of music, wine and cutting-edge art. The art form with which winemaking shares by far the most attributes must be jazz. Like Château Palmer, jazz has deep roots, and walks a flirtatious line between rigour and innovation. At its heart, jazz implies respecting a tradition while constantly enriching it. Is winemaking an art or a craft? Aesthetes and academics have been debating this question for several millennia. Like art, don’t we recognize a transcendent wine precisely by its power to transport us to the most unexpected places? To move us to exaltation, evoking sensations, images and aromas wholly unconnected with grapes: truffle, violets, silk, velvet, satin… For ten years between 2010 and 2019, the wines of Château Palmer have not only been tasted but also heard. Vintages have been unveiled live from the estate’s barrel room through the notes of great jazzmen of our time: Michel Portal, Yaron Herman, Dan Tepfer & Thomas Enhco, Émile Parisien or the legendary Archie Shepp and his Quartet, to name a few. Each occasion has further reinforced the intuitive rightness of the idea that jazz and the wines of Château Palmer do indeed share a common essence: in the freedom of harmonies, the energy of contrasts and the vitality of rhythm. Edition Palmer, the collaboration between ACT & Château Palmer, kicked off in 2023 with a major release: DUO was an intimate musical conversation between Joachim Kühn and Michael Wollny, two of the unquestioned greats of European jazz piano. The recording received international acclaim: ‘Der Tagesspiegel’, one of Germany's most respected daily newspapers, wrote: "The duo of Michael Wollny and Joachim Kühn is an alchemical miracle. They share a spirit of improvisation that combines introspection and expression, anticipation and perspiration." The leading French publication "Jazz Magazine" praised "a deep connection of extreme sensitivity." Whereas the music for the first Edition Palmer was recorded live at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the second release has been made at Château Palmer itself. A 'salon' in the château itself was the exclusive recording venue for a line-up of top flight, world class musicians. TRIO features the renowned bassist, cellist and composer Lars Danielsson, together with two greats of jazz from the north: Finnish trumpeter Verneri Pohjola and British guitarist John Parricelli. The listener will savour the genius loci, the tranquillity and intimacy of the recording location. This album not only brings the original idea of the collaboration between ACT & Château Palmer to life in a palpably exciting and entirely apposite way, it has also vividly captured the magic which arises when unique artists come together in a uniquely beautiful and special setting.Credits: Produced by Andreas Brandis In cooperation with Chateau Palmer The Art in Music: Cover art by Mark Harrington

Lars Danielsson - Palmer Edititon II: TrioCD / Vinyl / digital Lars Danielsson double bass & cello Verneri Pohjola trumpet John Parricelli guitar Commitment, consistency and a strong forward-thinking spirit. These are the core values which connect ACT, one of Europe’s leading labels "in the spirit of jazz", with Château Palmer, one of the most mythical Grands Crus from Bordeaux’s Left Bank. The partnership between them combines their worlds of music, wine and cutting-edge art. The art form with which winemaking shares by far the most attributes must be jazz. Like Château Palmer, jazz has deep roots, and walks a flirtatious line between rigour and innovation. At its heart, jazz implies respecting a tradition while constantly enriching it. Is winemaking an art or a craft? Aesthetes and academics have been debating this question for several millennia. Like art, don’t we recognize a transcendent wine precisely by its power to transport us to the most unexpected places? To move us to exaltation, evoking sensations, images and aromas wholly unconnected with grapes: truffle, violets, silk, velvet, satin… For ten years between 2010 and 2019, the wines of Château Palmer have not only been tasted but also heard. Vintages have been unveiled live from the estate’s barrel room through the notes of great jazzmen of our time: Michel Portal, Yaron Herman, Dan Tepfer & Thomas Enhco, Émile Parisien or the legendary Archie Shepp and his Quartet, to name a few. Each occasion has further reinforced the intuitive rightness of the idea that jazz and the wines of Château Palmer do indeed share a common essence: in the freedom of harmonies, the energy of contrasts and the vitality of rhythm. Edition Palmer, the collaboration between ACT & Château Palmer, kicked off in 2023 with a major release: DUO was an intimate musical conversation between Joachim Kühn and Michael Wollny, two of the unquestioned greats of European jazz piano. The recording received international acclaim: ‘Der Tagesspiegel’, one of Germany's most respected daily newspapers, wrote: "The duo of Michael Wollny and Joachim Kühn is an alchemical miracle. They share a spirit of improvisation that combines introspection and expression, anticipation and perspiration." The leading French publication "Jazz Magazine" praised "a deep connection of extreme sensitivity." Whereas the music for the first Edition Palmer was recorded live at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, the second release has been made at Château Palmer itself. A 'salon' in the château itself was the exclusive recording venue for a line-up of top flight, world class musicians. TRIO features the renowned bassist, cellist and composer Lars Danielsson, together with two greats of jazz from the north: Finnish trumpeter Verneri Pohjola and British guitarist John Parricelli. The listener will savour the genius loci, the tranquillity and intimacy of the recording location. This album not only brings the original idea of the collaboration between ACT & Château Palmer to life in a palpably exciting and entirely apposite way, it has also vividly captured the magic which arises when unique artists come together in a uniquely beautiful and special setting.Credits: Produced by Andreas Brandis In cooperation with Chateau Palmer The Art in Music: Cover art by Mark Harrington

iiro Rantala Trio - TrinityCD / Limited and Hand-Numbered Deluxe Vinyl Box / digital“A charming, grand performance and one of the best albums of this year. Exceedingly highly recommended.” The Ear / GB For the third edition of the exclusive collaboration between ACT and the renowned “Château Palmer,” Finnish master pianist Iiro Rantala dedicates himself to his love for the great jazz standards. For this project, he and producer Andreas Brandis assembled a new trio featuring Finnish, New York-based bassist Kaisa Mäensivu and Danish drummer Morten Lund. You can hear the magic of the historic château in Bordeaux in these recordings — sometimes tender and melodic, sometimes intensely swinging.Also available as strictly limited “EDITION PALMER III”High-quality, linen-covered box180-gram vinyl Hand-signed art print by Katja Strunz Extensive LP-sized booklet Hi-res download card iiro Rantala piano Kaisa Mäensivu double bass Morten Lund drums "Trinity" Text by Alex Dutilh, Open Jazz Translated by Sebastian Scotney2+2=3. The idea is mischievous, but maybe when a trio of musicians as good as these conspire together to make something very unusual, the breaking of rules is going to happen anyway. iiro Rantala and Morten Lund have known each other ever since the pianist joined the ACT family. Back then, in 2012, iiro called out to the Danish drummer to record ‘My History of Jazz’ with him. "Since then, I've become more convinced than ever that Morten really is the best in Europe at playing alongside a walking bass. And there’s a simple reason for that: he is steeped in Copenhagen’s long and illustrious jazz tradition. He has worked alongside the players who performed with Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz and Ben Webster, with Ed Thigpen, with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, pretty much everyone...he has inherited all of that history. " As regards the double bassist on this album, Kaisa met iiro at a jam session in Helsinki during Covid. Despite her being based in New York, the pianist recently hired her to celebrate Independence Day with him at the Finnish President’s residence in Helsinki, Mäntyniemi, in December 2024. "Morten, Kaisa and I had never actually played together before the Château Palmer gig. And I had never recorded an album of standards with a trio of piano, double bass and drums,” explains the pianist. “The usual way is to rehearse... then to play a few concerts or even a tour... we normally put ourselves to the test before we record. Not this time."That wish, to capture and preserve the freshness and wonder of things being done for the very first time is in the DNA of the Edition Palmer Collection, a superb initiative conceived and co-led by Thomas Duroux, director of Château Palmer, and Andreas Brandis, CEO and producer at ACT, with ‘Trinity’ as the third in the series. In 2023, the inaugural meeting between Joachim Kühn and Michael Wollny (‘Duo’) was very much a one-off encounter, and that set the tone. The emphasis in this series is on having the expectation that each ‘millésime’ will be resolutely, definingly unique... In 2024, the recording at the Château of Lars Danielsson's Trio with Verneri Pohjola and John Parricelli was also the result of following an intuition that the combination would be miraculous... all of this is very much aligned with Château Palmer’s way of making wine, which is to vary the proportions of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot in the blend of each year’s vintage. For this trio, iiro has opted for a repertoire of standards. This is a first for him, and in two respects. "I had been thinking about doing it for many years. I felt that at some point in my life, I had to pay tribute to this repertoire, which represents the foundations. Like a classical musician who must one day tackle the toccatas of Bach's or the sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven. That said, I think that jazz pianists as a rule are better off not starting from there. Because there is such a weight of expectation from those who came before: Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett... But one thing is certain. I wanted to approach the standards without arranging them or, more importantly, without deranging them, without the obsession of wanting to reharmonise them or feeling any need to transform a waltz into 5/4... I wanted it all to be as pared-down as possible, to approach them in the purest way we could." To make this intent even clearer, iiro chose not to seek out rare or forgotten standards, but to revisit some of the best-known ones. He stays as close as possible to their essence, allowing the listener to hear the ‘specific touch’ he brings to them... in the same way that a great wine strives to reveal the truth of its ‘terroir’. Alongside the Broadway classics, Rantala has smuggled in two sly acknowledgements of the French popular heritage. First, there is Hymne à l'amour, immortalised by Edith Piaf in 1950; second, the oldest lullaby known in France, Fais Dodo, Colas Mon P’tit Frère do, which dates back to the 18th century and has a melody which incorporates the sound of church bells ringing the Angelus. Every toddler remembers it, whether they live in the Médoc, Burgundy or Languedoc, so it's a particularly delightful moment when this lullaby is performed as a duet by iiro and Kaisa. It is also noteworthy that when the bassist recorded this, she was expecting a child... her pregnancy bump nestling against the double bass. A lullaby, then, which also embodies an annunciation. iiro is one of those musicians who – quite literally – has the lyrics of all of the standards he plays at his fingertips. So, the fact that the journey takes us from the cheerful I Love You to the tenderness of Smile says a lot about the atmosphere of the session: it was one in which a huge sense of empathy prevailed. Between the three musicians, there is a heightened sense of mutual listening, not least because there is no scope for patching, hiding away or trickery in this studio set-up: all three musicians are in the same room, a ‘salon’ on the ground floor of the Château. And their eyes are as wide open as their ears. Arnaud Houpert, the sound engineer, has installed a transparent screen in front of the drums and double bass to keep their sounds away from the piano microphones. The music is therefore captured as close as possible to the natural sound of three musicians making music ‘together’. And that brings a musical echo here of Palmer's biodynamic approach to winegrowing. In terms of closeness to nature, the recording venue took things even further, as the living room's French windows let in daylight and views of the landscape. Morten, Kaisa and iiro would all readily admit later that they were greatly inspired by the clouds, the blue sky and a breeze blowing through the trees as they improvised. Another indication of this trio’s natural and empathetic teamwork during their two days in the studio was that they never needed to go beyond three takes for any of the standards, and, in the case of four of them, the first take was the best, and the one used on the album. It must be said that as artistic director, Andreas Brandis, who was in the next room with the sound engineer, made the decisions with his very keen ear, discussing with iiro whether a particular take might need redoing, or if the magic had simply taken hold straight away. During one of the breaks, Andreas spoke of the respect he has for Thomas Duroux, the director of Château Palmer, with whom a long-standing partnership has been established. "Most of the other châteaux in the Médoc have classical music programmes, because it makes sense to have a violinist or solo pianist in a place associated with great wines. Jazz, with its adventurous side, is something very different. But Thomas Duroux, with his idea of combining his own passion for jazz with the world of wine, strikes a chord, and that's a stroke of luck. He tries to innovate in his holistic view of the relationship between the vineyard and its environment, which, I suppose, is not always the most obvious option. But, as in jazz, the most direct path is rarely the most interesting." In the same way as a new perspective on the trio comes from the insertion of the track for the duo of piano and double bass, a solo piano gem has also been cleverly slipped in, rather like a less common grape varietal which adds depth to the classic blend of a vintage. Iiro chose In a Sentimental Mood at the very end of the second session. And it would have been wrong for him to deprive us of it. We hear five minutes in which the pianist's truth creeps in beneath the melody – playing with a touch of bewildering grace. It takes complete maturity to dare such simplicity, to just let the fingers do the singing.Another memorable moment comes with the rhythm which Morten Lund has chosen for The Days of Wine and Roses. It might have brought a glimmer of approval to Ahmad Jamal (who never recorded the tune), remembering the days of his classic trio with Vernell Fournier and Israel Crosby. The energy in Lund’s drumming is a tonic, and it has more than a hint of tannic spice about it too. Perhaps that’s no accident, because Morten Lund is a devoted wine connoisseur and collector. His playing is in perfect sympathy with Kaisa Mäensivu's walking bass throughout the session. Kaisa now lives in New York, where she has formed a band to playing her own original music. "It was so nice to go back to the standards," she admits with a smile. "I found it enjoyable to be so free, because I usually play quite complex or difficult music. And here, suddenly, it all fits on one page, with simple chord changes, and you feel really free. It becomes a real playground." For Morten, this repertoire is more like a second skin: "It's quite natural in Copenhagen. First you have to get your ‘jazz licence’ by playing standards. It was and still is the way to get on the scene, get noticed and get gigs. I was deeply inspired by this tradition, which was, and still is, very strong in Denmark. Having learned from Alex Riel and Ed Thigpen, I have the standards in my blood." iiro, Kaisa and Morten share a commitment to communicate these standards as they really are, as if turning the pages of a short story with each one. The three have done the music a great service, by allowing these songs to sing, to breathe, to be both deeply felt and truly heard. This trilogy, just like its counterpart in wine, is best savoured slowly, one little sip at a time. These are songs which have not just stood the test of time; there is also something timeless about them.CreditsRecorded at Château Palmer in Margaux-Cantenac, France, May 19–22, 2025Recorded by Arnaud HoupertMixed and mastered by Klaus ScheuermannProduced by Andreas BrandisCover art © Katja Strunz Unfolding Process (2025) Courtesy of Contemporary Fine ArtsDesign by Siggi Loch

iiro Rantala Trio - TrinityCD / Limited and Hand-Numbered Deluxe Vinyl Box / digital“A charming, grand performance and one of the best albums of this year. Exceedingly highly recommended.” The Ear / GB For the third edition of the exclusive collaboration between ACT and the renowned “Château Palmer,” Finnish master pianist Iiro Rantala dedicates himself to his love for the great jazz standards. For this project, he and producer Andreas Brandis assembled a new trio featuring Finnish, New York-based bassist Kaisa Mäensivu and Danish drummer Morten Lund. You can hear the magic of the historic château in Bordeaux in these recordings — sometimes tender and melodic, sometimes intensely swinging.Also available as strictly limited “EDITION PALMER III”High-quality, linen-covered box180-gram vinyl Hand-signed art print by Katja Strunz Extensive LP-sized booklet Hi-res download card iiro Rantala piano Kaisa Mäensivu double bass Morten Lund drums "Trinity" Text by Alex Dutilh, Open Jazz Translated by Sebastian Scotney2+2=3. The idea is mischievous, but maybe when a trio of musicians as good as these conspire together to make something very unusual, the breaking of rules is going to happen anyway. iiro Rantala and Morten Lund have known each other ever since the pianist joined the ACT family. Back then, in 2012, iiro called out to the Danish drummer to record ‘My History of Jazz’ with him. "Since then, I've become more convinced than ever that Morten really is the best in Europe at playing alongside a walking bass. And there’s a simple reason for that: he is steeped in Copenhagen’s long and illustrious jazz tradition. He has worked alongside the players who performed with Dexter Gordon, Stan Getz and Ben Webster, with Ed Thigpen, with Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen, pretty much everyone...he has inherited all of that history. " As regards the double bassist on this album, Kaisa met iiro at a jam session in Helsinki during Covid. Despite her being based in New York, the pianist recently hired her to celebrate Independence Day with him at the Finnish President’s residence in Helsinki, Mäntyniemi, in December 2024. "Morten, Kaisa and I had never actually played together before the Château Palmer gig. And I had never recorded an album of standards with a trio of piano, double bass and drums,” explains the pianist. “The usual way is to rehearse... then to play a few concerts or even a tour... we normally put ourselves to the test before we record. Not this time."That wish, to capture and preserve the freshness and wonder of things being done for the very first time is in the DNA of the Edition Palmer Collection, a superb initiative conceived and co-led by Thomas Duroux, director of Château Palmer, and Andreas Brandis, CEO and producer at ACT, with ‘Trinity’ as the third in the series. In 2023, the inaugural meeting between Joachim Kühn and Michael Wollny (‘Duo’) was very much a one-off encounter, and that set the tone. The emphasis in this series is on having the expectation that each ‘millésime’ will be resolutely, definingly unique... In 2024, the recording at the Château of Lars Danielsson's Trio with Verneri Pohjola and John Parricelli was also the result of following an intuition that the combination would be miraculous... all of this is very much aligned with Château Palmer’s way of making wine, which is to vary the proportions of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot in the blend of each year’s vintage. For this trio, iiro has opted for a repertoire of standards. This is a first for him, and in two respects. "I had been thinking about doing it for many years. I felt that at some point in my life, I had to pay tribute to this repertoire, which represents the foundations. Like a classical musician who must one day tackle the toccatas of Bach's or the sonatas of Mozart and Beethoven. That said, I think that jazz pianists as a rule are better off not starting from there. Because there is such a weight of expectation from those who came before: Bill Evans, Oscar Peterson, Keith Jarrett... But one thing is certain. I wanted to approach the standards without arranging them or, more importantly, without deranging them, without the obsession of wanting to reharmonise them or feeling any need to transform a waltz into 5/4... I wanted it all to be as pared-down as possible, to approach them in the purest way we could." To make this intent even clearer, iiro chose not to seek out rare or forgotten standards, but to revisit some of the best-known ones. He stays as close as possible to their essence, allowing the listener to hear the ‘specific touch’ he brings to them... in the same way that a great wine strives to reveal the truth of its ‘terroir’. Alongside the Broadway classics, Rantala has smuggled in two sly acknowledgements of the French popular heritage. First, there is Hymne à l'amour, immortalised by Edith Piaf in 1950; second, the oldest lullaby known in France, Fais Dodo, Colas Mon P’tit Frère do, which dates back to the 18th century and has a melody which incorporates the sound of church bells ringing the Angelus. Every toddler remembers it, whether they live in the Médoc, Burgundy or Languedoc, so it's a particularly delightful moment when this lullaby is performed as a duet by iiro and Kaisa. It is also noteworthy that when the bassist recorded this, she was expecting a child... her pregnancy bump nestling against the double bass. A lullaby, then, which also embodies an annunciation. iiro is one of those musicians who – quite literally – has the lyrics of all of the standards he plays at his fingertips. So, the fact that the journey takes us from the cheerful I Love You to the tenderness of Smile says a lot about the atmosphere of the session: it was one in which a huge sense of empathy prevailed. Between the three musicians, there is a heightened sense of mutual listening, not least because there is no scope for patching, hiding away or trickery in this studio set-up: all three musicians are in the same room, a ‘salon’ on the ground floor of the Château. And their eyes are as wide open as their ears. Arnaud Houpert, the sound engineer, has installed a transparent screen in front of the drums and double bass to keep their sounds away from the piano microphones. The music is therefore captured as close as possible to the natural sound of three musicians making music ‘together’. And that brings a musical echo here of Palmer's biodynamic approach to winegrowing. In terms of closeness to nature, the recording venue took things even further, as the living room's French windows let in daylight and views of the landscape. Morten, Kaisa and iiro would all readily admit later that they were greatly inspired by the clouds, the blue sky and a breeze blowing through the trees as they improvised. Another indication of this trio’s natural and empathetic teamwork during their two days in the studio was that they never needed to go beyond three takes for any of the standards, and, in the case of four of them, the first take was the best, and the one used on the album. It must be said that as artistic director, Andreas Brandis, who was in the next room with the sound engineer, made the decisions with his very keen ear, discussing with iiro whether a particular take might need redoing, or if the magic had simply taken hold straight away. During one of the breaks, Andreas spoke of the respect he has for Thomas Duroux, the director of Château Palmer, with whom a long-standing partnership has been established. "Most of the other châteaux in the Médoc have classical music programmes, because it makes sense to have a violinist or solo pianist in a place associated with great wines. Jazz, with its adventurous side, is something very different. But Thomas Duroux, with his idea of combining his own passion for jazz with the world of wine, strikes a chord, and that's a stroke of luck. He tries to innovate in his holistic view of the relationship between the vineyard and its environment, which, I suppose, is not always the most obvious option. But, as in jazz, the most direct path is rarely the most interesting." In the same way as a new perspective on the trio comes from the insertion of the track for the duo of piano and double bass, a solo piano gem has also been cleverly slipped in, rather like a less common grape varietal which adds depth to the classic blend of a vintage. Iiro chose In a Sentimental Mood at the very end of the second session. And it would have been wrong for him to deprive us of it. We hear five minutes in which the pianist's truth creeps in beneath the melody – playing with a touch of bewildering grace. It takes complete maturity to dare such simplicity, to just let the fingers do the singing.Another memorable moment comes with the rhythm which Morten Lund has chosen for The Days of Wine and Roses. It might have brought a glimmer of approval to Ahmad Jamal (who never recorded the tune), remembering the days of his classic trio with Vernell Fournier and Israel Crosby. The energy in Lund’s drumming is a tonic, and it has more than a hint of tannic spice about it too. Perhaps that’s no accident, because Morten Lund is a devoted wine connoisseur and collector. His playing is in perfect sympathy with Kaisa Mäensivu's walking bass throughout the session. Kaisa now lives in New York, where she has formed a band to playing her own original music. "It was so nice to go back to the standards," she admits with a smile. "I found it enjoyable to be so free, because I usually play quite complex or difficult music. And here, suddenly, it all fits on one page, with simple chord changes, and you feel really free. It becomes a real playground." For Morten, this repertoire is more like a second skin: "It's quite natural in Copenhagen. First you have to get your ‘jazz licence’ by playing standards. It was and still is the way to get on the scene, get noticed and get gigs. I was deeply inspired by this tradition, which was, and still is, very strong in Denmark. Having learned from Alex Riel and Ed Thigpen, I have the standards in my blood." iiro, Kaisa and Morten share a commitment to communicate these standards as they really are, as if turning the pages of a short story with each one. The three have done the music a great service, by allowing these songs to sing, to breathe, to be both deeply felt and truly heard. This trilogy, just like its counterpart in wine, is best savoured slowly, one little sip at a time. These are songs which have not just stood the test of time; there is also something timeless about them.CreditsRecorded at Château Palmer in Margaux-Cantenac, France, May 19–22, 2025Recorded by Arnaud HoupertMixed and mastered by Klaus ScheuermannProduced by Andreas BrandisCover art © Katja Strunz Unfolding Process (2025) Courtesy of Contemporary Fine ArtsDesign by Siggi Loch