Bill Laurance & Michael League - Where You Wish You WereNow available for the first time as a limited oxblood-colored vinyl edition, following a long period of unavailability!CD / Vinyl / digital Bill Laurance acoustic piano and voice Michael League oud, fretless acoustic guitar bass, fret-less baritone electric guitar, ngoni and voice A mere mention of the names of Michael League and Bill Laurance makes one think of Snarky Puppy. It is now nearly twenty years since Southern California-born bassist/multi-instrumentalist Michael League founded the globally acclaimed, four-time GRAMMY award-winning collective. As for keyboardist Bill Laurance, originally from London, he has been a part of the globe-trotting adventure for nearly as long as League has. So the fact that League and Laurance are now releasing "Where you Wish you Were", their first duo album together, does feel at the same time like a logical development...and also a surprise. Michael League takes a very different role here from the one he does in Snarky Puppy. On "Where you Wish you Were", he is to be heard mainly playing the oud and other acoustic stringed instruments. He takes the view that “we are so much more than the roles we play in the most popular band that we're a part of.” And Bill Laurance adds: "It was only a matter of time before we'd make a record by ourselves. We've been close friends for 20 years now and we've worked together in so many different capacities - with Snarky Puppy, my own band, and in collaboration with other artists. So it just felt like it was a natural thing to do." Laurance and League became completely taken by the idea of doing something totally different from Snarky Puppy, which is a project on such a large scale, it recently filled London's 12,500-capacity Wembley Arena. The pair kept the idea in mind to reduce the music down to a scale where it could be played by their duo. The recording offered a long-awaited opportunity to explore the intimacy, fragility and clarity which exist within the relationship between two musicians; it was something which they were both keen to achieve. "I think both Michael and I are driven by the idea to push boundaries, which is important. But this album is different," Laurance recalls. “Every single compositional idea has a lot of weight to it, and everything has very specific purpose. There was no rhythm section to hide behind, it was really just about melody and chords. And we were instinctively trying to create a place where people want to go to, that felt comforting. We feel that now, maybe more than ever, there is a need for such places.” What is particularly surprising, apart from the duo format with its reduced, concentrated approach, is the particular sonic and stylistic character of the music. Bill Laurance, who with his own projects and also with Snarky Puppy, often relies on a mixture of piano and a variety of synthesizers, orchestral arrangements and digital soundscapes, focuses here entirely on the possibilities of an acoustic grand piano, which has been ‘prepared’ with extra felt to dampen the strings. And Michael League, known elsewhere primarily as an electric bassist fired up by jazz and groove, plays a number of mostly fretless stringed instruments of Mediterranean and Oriental origin here – first and foremost the oud, but also a specially constructed acoustic and electric guitar and a West African lute, the ngoni. All these instruments have the quality of being able to imitate the voice, and also offer microtonal possibilities which go way beyond the norms of western music. These kinds of musical influences have accompanied Michael League since his childhood, and particularly now because his adopted home country, Spain is part of the Mediterranean region: “My family is of Greek ancestry and my brother specializes in Greek folk music, so my first time playing an oud was when I snuck into his room as a 14 year-old. We always had Greek and Turkish music in the house, and over the last almost ten years I've visited Turkey frequently to study. I just love playing the oud but because I've never really taken any lessons, my relationship with the instrument is a bit unrefined. Yet, my oud mentor, the great Armenian-American musician Ara Dinkjian, has been very insistent that I continue to develop my voice on the instrument without formal, traditional studies. He likes the unconventional way in which I approach the instrument. I treat it almost more like a blues slide guitar, and he wants to see what happens if I stay on this course.” "Where you Wish you Were" has nothing of a world jazz fusion album about it, and was never intended be one. "Bill and I are very clear about not pretending that this project has anything to do with replicating any regional styles with deep roots," emphasises League. "We're committed to creating something that is uniquely ours, even if it retains certain elements of established genres of music." And so it is, as is so often the case in the musical world which is now called "jazz": the universe of personal, musical and sonic influences of the two musicians do not serve to set limits or to categorise, but rather as a vocabulary which allows the two musicians’ own distinctive mode of expression to shine through. With compositions focused entirely on melody, harmony and space, a warm sound and the soulful playing of the two players, League and Laurance have created a place which is not just conducive to dreams; it is a place to which the listener will want to return to again and again.Credits: Produced by Bill Laurance and Michael League Cover art "Opus 18" by Nadia Attura

Joachim Kühn French Trio - The WayCD / Vinyl / digital Joachim Kühn piano Thibault Cellier double bass Sylvain Darrifourcq drums Each new band in Joachim Kühn's creative career has marked a new departure for him, a broadening of his horizons. Now, in double bassist Thibault Cellier and drummer Sylvain Darrifourcq, the pianist has found two musicians with whom he can achieve the things that are important to him at this stage of his life, around his 80th birthday: to take a path which allows him even more freedom. Joachim Kühn describes playing with these two musicians, much younger than him, as making music "the French way, with lightness, speed and elegance". The three do this intuitively, almost without any need for discussion, but with a real feeling of urgency. The backstory of the formation of the group is a matter of getting straight to the point. Joachim Kühn had been aware of Sylvain Darrifourcq’s playing for some time, notably from his years as the drummer in Émile Parisien's quartet, and also through some experiences of playing together. Kühn’s encounter with Thibault Cellier came about more by chance, in a hotel in Paris, but Joachim already had some familiarity with the bassist’s playing, notably from records by the group Novembre - Sylvain Darrifourcq the bassist plays alongside the bassist in their second album. Contacts were quickly set up, and within four months, the two Frenchmen were in the pianist's home studio in Ibiza, making music and recording as a trio, completely free of constraints. When Joachim Kühn heard the tapes a little later, he said: "That's how I want to sound now.” Or, quite simply, a band had been born. Playing in a piano trio runs right through the pianist's oeuvre. Alongside solo piano, it is and remains the ultimate proving-ground for a pianist. With his first trio, formed in 1964 in his home town of Leipzig, Kühn made his ambition to break new ground very clear. In the years since he moved to Paris at the end of the 1960s, he has frequently worked with French musicians. Formed in 1974 and highly successful for two and a half decades, the trio with bassist Jean-François Jenny-Clark and drummer Daniel Humair demonstrated an innovative and totally interactive style of music that had never been heard before. Joachim Kühn calls the band "the trio of my life". But there were astonishing developments and discoveries after that as well: the trio with Moroccan guembri player Majid Bekkas and Spanish percussionist Ramón López successfully bridged the gap between jazz, European, African and Arabic cultures. And the New Trio with Chris Jennings and Eric Schaefer developed a style of playing with clear contours and a wide-open approach which never failed to fascinate. In some ways, the new French Trio might seem to be a follow-on from the previous trio involving two musicians from the Francophone world, Jean-François Jenny-Clark and Daniel Humair. But history does not repeat itself. And free jazz, in Joachim Kühn’s sense of it, has long since outgrown its infancy. These days, the pianist says, it is just as much about freedom and the spontaneous creation of structures. And also, as with all of the very great role models, especially in their later creative phases – Bach, Coltrane, Ornette Coleman and Joachim's late elder brother Rolf Kühn – it is about finding the way that leads straight to the essential, to the heart of things. And into the open. Credits: Produced by Joachim Kühn The Art in Music: Cover Art von Stanley Whitney

Bill Laurance & Michael League - Keeping Company CD / Vinyl / digital Bill Laurance piano Michael League oud, fretless bass, vocals “For us to take a common project and drive it forwards together is an affirmation of who we are: we're just good friends and we're celebrating that with this album.” Bill Laurance There are some duos which can seem as if they have been patched together. And there are others which come into being naturally and completely of their own accord. The pairing of pianist Bill Laurance and bassist/oud player Michael League is very much one of the latter; the two musicians have known each other since student days. During a chance meeting in Leeds, England, as sidemen on a one-off project, the two quickly formed a musical bond that would grow through the formation of Snarky Puppy in 2004 and its development over years of touring together, a number of solo albums and collaborations, and finally, in 2020, the birth of their duo. Bill Laurance and Michael League’s new duo album, “Keeping Company,” is at the opposite end of the spectrum from all the extraversion, large scale and sheer oomph of Snarky Puppy; the focus here is on a shared inner perspective. That much is apparent immediately from the choice of instruments. Laurance has cast aside electronic keyboards and concentrates on piano, acoustic in sound although the piano strings have been occasionally and lightly prepared. Michael League chooses a fretless acoustic bass guitar and the oud. An extreme contrast to the pure groove of Snarky Puppy, here he goes for a transparently sparse but atmospherically rich sound. They do just fine without the band, creating a special freedom for both participants. “The oud in itself has a specific associative space,” says Bill Laurance from the orchestral perspective of the piano. “When I compose, my aim is to transport the listener. That works with the sound of the oud. It's not a guitar, it has something exotic about it. It's a canvas on which you can paint a lot of things. On the first album, we discussed whether Michael should play a fretless nylon string guitar. He tried it out, but it didn't produce the same emotion as the oud. Due to the oud being fretless, it can access a whole new world of expression and created new colours for the duo. That fascinated us.” Their curiosity is undimmed. “Keeping Company” is the duo's second album after the internationally acclaimed “Where You Wish You Were,” released in January 2023. The preparation phase was extremely productive. Both musicians wrote numerous sketches and compositions, with Bill Laurance alone writing up to three ideas a day for weeks on end. Finally, the abundance of new material had to be whittled down. “The first album was more about establishing a sound and exploring the dynamics. Now we want to delve deeper. There's even more personality in the music. We also wanted to try out things we hadn't explored before in this format, a touch of soul jazz, for example. We also made it a priority to record practically everything live, without unnecessary overdubbing. We have found a particular beauty in concentrating on what happens organically without too much extraneous thought or effort. The whole idea of broadening horizons by taking excursions into the unknown is second nature in this partnership. Michael League, for example, has never formally studied the oud in a classical context. He knows the instrument largely from his brother, who studied it while living in Greece in the early 2000s, and is mentored by Ara Dinkjian, one of the world’s most respected masters of the instrument. But he himself has explored the short-necked lute largely from his own perspective (as encouraged to do so by Dinkjian) and therefore ornaments differently, intuitively, and with a unique accent. Bill Laurance, on the other hand, dispenses with the expansive and grand-standing aspects of the piano. He prefers cantabile melodies, rhythmically clever, clear accompaniments, and compact improvisations. The pieces themselves seem like miniatures- hints at ideas rather than final or definitive statements. And that, as a duo still making discoveries, is all that they need to do here. “Keeping Company” is a snapshot of an unusual team, catching moments like a collection of Polaroids in sound. Bill Laurance and Michael League are still in the wonderfully inspiring phase of joint exploration. Everything is open. The music sounds spontaneous and intuitive. It has the power of the personal and builds on a friendship in which shared humour is a part of what happens naturally. Perhaps one day other players will join in. But for the time being, this intimate musical dialogue is the ideal form of artistic conversation for Bill Laurance and Michael League.Credits: Produced by Bill Laurance, Michael League & Nic Hard

Joel Lyssarides - Arcs & RiversCD / Vinyl / digital Joel Lyssarides piano Georgios Prokopiou bouzouki Exactly when and how the long neck lute ‘bouzouki’ first landed in Greece remains a mystery. Its roots go back to the fourth century before Christ. Named after the “Βυζί“, the Greek word for female breast, the current form of the instrument is relatively young and has been all over Athens and the Peloponnese since around 1920. Initially at home in bars, parties and festivals; it certainly played its part in the revival of the ‘rebetiko’, often referred to ‘the Greek blues’ from the 1960s onwards. ‘Back in the early days there was a lot of improvisation, much more than in recent times...’ says Georgios Prokopiou, ‘because from the fifties onwards, the bouzouki was taught. And that's when so many more things about it became tied down and standardised’. Since that time, the metallic sound of the instrument has become almost synonymous with Greek folklore as the accompaniment for songs and dances...notably with composer Mikis Theodorakis, the source of more than a few ear-worms.Until now, the bouzouki has never got out of the starting gates as a jazz instrument. That, however, is about to change, but it needed a detour via Stockholm. ‘The links and connections aren’t obvious’ says pianist Joel Lyssarides, ‘but they stem from my grandfather, a Greek Cypriot, who came to Sweden in the 1940s. I always liked Greek music, but didn't really know it very well. In any case, I have always found the bouzouki fascinating. During the pandemic I bought myself an instrument and started learning it a bit. While browsing the internet I discovered Georgios from a concert on TV in tribute to Theodorakis. So I asked around in Stockholm if anyone knew him, only to discover that he would be playing a concert in a nearby hotel bar just a few days later.’ That happened in the autumn of 2022. Joel Lyssarides went and heard Georgios Prokopiou playing live, spoke to him afterwards, and they arranged to meet for a session. They jammed together, quickly found that they got on well, and in the summer of 2023 got themselves a booking to give their first concert together. ‘It is very unusual for someone to improvise over changes with the bouzouki,’ Joel Lyssarides continues. ‘After all, it is a traditional instrument with a clearly defined role, mostly accompaniment with parallel thirds and sixths. Georgios, however, does much, much more than that. I had no idea how good he really is. His versatility opens many doors musically. We had a lot of fun opening up new possibilities right from the start. And since I had never heard anyone play bouzouki like that before, I knew that I absolutely had to write some music for it’. Lyssarides also told ACT head and producer Andreas Brandis about the idea for the duo, and he was immediately supportive and enthusiastic: ‘ACT's way of thinking is that the term ‘jazz’ primarily stands for a vocabulary that musicians can use to tell their story against their own personal cultural backdrop. It is fascinating that formations keep emerging that never existed before. And the music that Joel Lyssarides and Giorgios Prokopiou create together is, on the one hand, absolutely surprising and new, but at the same time sounds so organic and natural, as if this combination of instruments had existed forever.’ And, of course, it is not just the instruments – piano and bouzouki – which have come together, but also the individual characters and musical histories of each of the duo partners. Joel Lyssarides from Stockholm combines great virtuosity with impressive ease and a strong sense of mood and dynamics. He has performed with artists as diverse as Anne Sofie von Otter, Benny Anderson, Nils Landgren, Viktoria Tolstoy and recently been part of the Esbjörn Svensson tribute "e.s.t. 30". Since its release in 2022, Lyssarides' ACT debut album "Stay Now" has been played an impressive 25 million times on Spotify alone. Georgios Prokopiou, originally from Athens who now makes his home in Stockholm, began playing bouzouki at the age of six and a half, made his concert debut at the age of eight and by the time he was ten was doing music engagements in the bars and “studios” (brothels) of Athens. Since then he has worked in classical contexts as well as in folk and experimental music. In addition to the bouzouki, he also plays the saz or bağlama, plus a range of other stringed instruments. Lyssarides and Prokopiou chose to cast their net as widely as possible for the material in ‘Arcs & Rivers’. After a rehearsal concert at the ACT Art Collection in Berlin – from which one live track, ‘Zafeirious Solo’, was included in the album – the two of them met again at the same location to record the rest with studio equipment in place. ‘For example, we wanted to include quiet parts, miked up close. We also wanted to capture the great sound of the grand piano which was originally selected by Alfred Brendel. Overall, however, there was a lot which was very spontaneous. The whole album was recorded at one session, within four hours, mostly with first takes. I'm usually a perfectionist and spend days reworking and editing music in the studio. This time, however, I wanted it to be as direct and in-the-moment as possible.’ And it has worked. ‘Arcs & Rivers’ is like a sketchbook containing dialogues which – considering it is a first time venture – sets a bar for achievement very high indeed. Both in the new compositions and in the adaptations of traditional material – as in ‘Kamilieriko Road’ – this music has a dazzling, magical sound. And the duo itself radiates a naturalness of cultural fusion that transcends any stylistic constraints. It seems that indeed the time is right for more bouzouki in jazz, and for its unique sound to be heard by the international music world. Credits: Produced by Joel Lyssarides, Georgios Prokopiou and Andreas Brandis Recorded by Thomas Schöttl at the ACT Gallery in Berlin, Germany, on 29 - 30 April 2024 Mixed and mastered by Klaus Scheuermann The Art in Music: Cover art „Landschaft 1994“ (Detail) created by Manfred Bockelmann

Daniel García - WonderlandCD / Vinyl / digital Daniel García piano, vocals on #10 Reinier “El Negrón” double bass Michael Olivera drums, vocals on #6 special guests Gilad Hekselman guitar on #3 Lau Noah vocals on #7 Verónica Ferreiro vocals on #11 Something very special indeed is happening in the Spanish jazz scene. For a long time, its lively centres of Madrid, Barcelona and Seville tended to stay somewhat detached from the international jazz world. But in recent years a whole generation of Spanish jazz musicians has been rising to international renown: it is more than a cohort, it is starting to feel like a movement. And one key figure in it is pianist Daníel Garcia, born in Salamanca in 1983. With his trio he has made a name for himself as one of the most important representatives of jazz in his home country – playing over 300 concerts throughout Europe and as far away as Japan. The band's line-up demonstrates another important aspect of the Spanish scene: many musicians from Cuba found a second home there due to the common language - and brought their outstanding musical training and influences with them. This is certainly the case for bassist Reinier "El Negron" and drummer Michael Olivera, who form the rhythm section of the Daniel García Trio. Together, they are a tight unit with an instinctive feel, and who after seven years together are completely played-in. "Wonderland" is the Daniel García Trio's third album on ACT. And whereas the previous albums "Travesuras" (2019) and "Vía de la Plata" (2021) were still characterised by clear influences from flamenco and traditional Spanish music, García has now cast his net wider. There are flamenco borrowings on "Wonderland", but they are more subtle and sit alongside a whole range of inspirations from modern jazz, classical music, pop, together with influences from the Caribbean and the Middle East. At the same time, "Wonderland" is also about the inner search: Daníel Garcia quotes Swiss psychologist Carl Jung in the liner notes: "Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” García invites his listeners to explore their own feelings and thoughts - in “this secret haven where our deepest illusions and most fervent hopes reside, guiding us through the labyrinth of life.” In the twelve songs on the album, Daniel García traverses many different places in the soul, and creates a coherent narrative from them. We enter the emotional landscape with the powerful "Gates to the Lands of Wonders". This is followed by the title track, in which the Israeli guitarist Gilad Hekselman, a guest on the album, plays a cheerful melody in unison with the bandleader. "I love his sound and his compositions," says García. "Such a creative force! I like guitarists who speak through their instrument in such a human way". García has dedicated the gentle "Mi Bolita" to his new-born nephew; it represents the importance of family in the pianist's life, while the playfully energetic "Witness the Smile" shows García leaning into empathy and generosity, its catchy melody showing the pianist's Cuban influences - and, of course, those of his bandmates Reinier "El Negron" and Michael Olivera. "They are my brothers," enthuses García. "If I could choose two musicians from anyone in the world, I would still choose these two! Together, we are one unit." "I find it hard to put my music in any one category," says García. "It feels like trying to put the sea in a box - it just overflows! I love classical music, I love Middle Eastern music, I love rock, I love singer/songwriters! Inspiration can come from anywhere. The intro to 'The Gathering', for example, was inspired by a melody I heard on the streets of Salamanca." Two remarkable voices round off the album, the A Coruña- born and Madrid-based singer Verónica Ferreiro and the Catalan singer Lau Noah, who is based in New York. In "You and Me" she sings: "Take my hands/Now, come and dance/Time to forget the wounds/All the scars, the pain". An invitation to forget the pain in dance - and for Daniel a way to make the world a better place, if only for a moment. He says "There are so many tragedies happening around us. There is little we can do except believe in ourselves and be good to others." The power of music to improve the world may sound utopian. But Daníel Garcia, a soft-spoken man, warm-hearted and always smiling, will make you believe it. Take the opportunity to go with him as he travels through his "wonderland". The journey is fulfilling, worthwhile and memorable.Credits: Produced and composed by Daniel García except #11, traditional Cover art (Detail) by Alice Baber (1928 - 1982) Courtesy Berry Campbell Gallery, New York

Jan Lundgren - Inner SpiritsCD / Vinyl / digital Jan Lundgren piano Yamandu Costa guitar Pianist Jan Lundgren from Ystad in Sweden and guitarist Yamandu Costa, from Brazil’s southernmost province Rio Grande del Sur might seem an unlikely pairing, and the combination of guitar and piano is well known to be fraught with difficulty. But the collaborative affinity of this duo, the chemistry which they have found through playing together, first in a handful of concerts, and now on this fine album, are something truly exceptional. Lundgren and Costa are internationally outstanding representatives of their craft. “For Yamandu Costa, the guitar is a natural extension of his body and soul,” a critic has observed. Costa has six Latin Grammy nominations and one win to his name, and plays with an elegance, harmonic fluidity and a deep knowledge of Latin American music across a whole range of contexts from solo to working with symphony orchestras. Jan Lundgren has made a major contribution to the European jazz of the past two decades, not least through his role in the Mare Nostrum trio with Paolo Fresu and Richard Galliano. As Dave Gelly has written in The Observer (UK), what Mare Nostrum’s members have in common is“ a flair for melody and a similar lightness of touch, which makes their combined sound both delicate and irresistible.” Such are the virtues which Costa and Lundgren bring to their new endeavour together. The pair first met in Malmö in Southern Sweden in 2019, had dinner together and found an instant affinity. Lundgren invited the guitarist to be a guest at the festival which he directs in Ystad. As they got to know each other they listened to each other’s music, both finding a genuine enthusiasm for the music of the other, which eventually led Lundgren to ask “shall we do something together?” “It made me very happy when the Stockholm Konserthuset joined in on the idea,” the pianist remembers. The duo’s first concert took place on 17 February 2023, was captured on video, and the good experience led them to arrange more concerts and then to book dates for a recording. After a few days of working on the new repertoire at the ACT Art Gallery, the duo headed to Emil Berliner studios for just a day and a half of recording in February 2024, with Andreas Brandis producing and the watchful and experienced ear of Rainer Maillard as engineer. Brandis says: "It's amazing to hear how closely their playing interlocks, how they constantly switch the roles of lead and secondary voice. Both are masters of harmony and melody, each with their own cultural background." Lundgren agrees: “That is where we find each other and why we like each other,” and Costa ads: “We play original music. I believe that in this way we can have something sincere and really true to our purposes.” That interest in giving to a collective endeavour is astonishingly palpable from the very first seconds of the album. The rhythm of “Para Aprender A Amar” (to learn to love) is Ecuadorian, a pasilo and the first strong melodic voice that we hear is of the lowest string of Costa’s “violão de sete cordas“ (seven-string Brazilian guitar), a signature model from Cuenca in Spain. There are also delightful explorations of Brazilian music, such as the lively choro “Diplomata”, and a little-known gem from Jobim, “Garoto”. The titles of Lundgren’s compositions point clearly to how personal and how authentic this album is. He has devoted one track each to his Mare Nostrum partners Paolo Fresu and Richard Galliano, and also one to his wife, singer Hannah Svensson. The variety of style, pace and mood of “Inner Spirits” as a whole is addictive. Jan Lundgren and Yamandu Costa’s winning combination of empathy, mutual respect and jaw-dropping musicianship has produced a beautiful-sounding set which is certainly about to earn its place as one of the very great piano-and-guitar recordings.Credits: Produced by Andreas Brandis Cover art created by Olafur Eliasson “Friend from the ecotone, 2020 (detail) , ACT Art Collection, Courtesy neugerriemschneider Berlin

Bernd Lhotzky - The Gallery Concerts III: Rag BagCD / Vinyl / digitalBernd Lhotzky pianoBernd Lhotzky has been Germany’s most important exponent of classic jazz piano for the past three decades. However, his approach to music from the early days of jazz on his new solo album ‘Rag Bag’ is anything but museum-like. He says: ‘What fascinates me in music, art and life in general are the contradictions and contrasts, the syncopations, the cracks in time.’ ‘Rag Bag’ is a journey between times and worlds, a patchwork of the most diverse motifs, styles and associations. The nucleus of the album's music is Ragtime, one of the earliest forms of jazz. Lhotzky says: ‘To this day, what I love about this music is that it is so warm, life-affirming and undisguised and simply bursts with vitality and honest joy.Lhotzky’s contribution to the rediscovery of jazz from the twenties to the fifties has been immeasurable, in particular his role as the artistic director and creative fountainhead of the internationally celebrated band ‘Echoes of Swing’, but also as an organizer and promoter of concerts and festivals. And it all started with Ragtime. Lhotzky says: ‘This music was my route into jazz. And what still fascinates me today is how warm, life-affirming and unpretentious about this music is. I love the jazz of the early days because it is bursting with such vitality and honest joy.’ And when Lhotzky looks back at the decisive events which fired his enthusiasm for early jazz, Ragtime was there first. He has previously spoken of the time when as an eleven year old, an uncle gave him a Fats Waller record, the moment which sparked off his love of Harlem Stride piano. But already at the age of nine he was taken to a concert of music by Scott Joplin, and that was his very first introduction to this music. Over the years, his enthusiasm for the roots of jazz, which are also his own musical roots, fuelled Lhotzky's desire as composer and pianist to focus his activity on working at the intersection between contemporary jazz and Ragtime. When he told ACT founder Siggi Loch about his idea, the latter invited the pianist to a concert in the intimate surroundings of his ACT Art Collection in Berlin - and made sure that the performance was recorded. The resulting album ‘Rag Bag’ is the third in the ACT series ‘The Gallery Concerts’. These are live chamber music recordings in a special and exclusive setting, and ‘Rag Bag’ follows on from two duo recordings: one with pianist Johanna Summer and saxophonist Jakob Manz, two of the greatest rising stars of German jazz, and the other with the Swedish jazz greats Jan Lundgren and Hans Backenroth. Bernd Lhotzky’s journey to the origins of jazz also reflects on the present day. ‘Rag Bag‘ has been a real liberation,’ says Lhotzky. ‘The solo format allows me to be completely uncompromising. This is me, just me, all the time.‘ His journey to the origins of jazz is therefore also a reflection on Lhotzky’s own career until the present day: ‘My improvisations are a patchwork of different motifs and styles that have shaped my musical personality since I started playing jazz at the age of nine.‘ One of Lhotzky's strongest influences is the pianist Scott Joplin, a pioneer of crossing boundaries and blending genres in his time - whose compositions between jazz and classical music, with all their subtlety, grace, beauty and artistry, form a stark contrast to the tragic life of their creator. In many respects, ‘Rag Bag’ is a minor musical miracle. Firstly, because Lhotzky had only eight weeks to prepare this complex programme. But above all, paradoxically because ‘Rag Bag’ sounds so modern. Yes, Lhotzky may be playing music whose melodies, procedures and rules are over a hundred years old - ‘The ‘Linden Tree Rag’, for example,’ he says, ‘is based on a piece from 1850, and is more like French salon music.’ What makes Lhotzky's take on this kind of music feel so modern is his incredible instinct for improvisatory freedom. His compositions - from ‘Synkope schlüpft’ (the syncopation slips) to ‘Yara's Lazy Strut’ to ‘Maple Syrup’ or ‘The Host's Request’ - take beautiful structures and simple melodies and transform them into self-contained mind games where intuition rules. Without ever departing from the Ragtime framework, he manages to be completely free within it. ‘Out Of Bondage’ may serve as a prime example. It briefly echoes Scott Joplin's best-known piece ‘The Entertainer’ as if in a dream, only to immediately lead into a dramatic prelude, almost reminiscent of Grieg or Debussy in its impressionism and its fractured line, leading to a sudden explosion at the end. The result is a very special and exciting jazz album with the accessibility and cheerfulness of the early jazz entertainers, but we see them in a completely new light, both because of his original concept, and because of his deep knowledge of the history of the music which reaches right up to the present day. ‘Rag Bag’ has immediacy, the tingle of a live performance and the inspiration of the moment. A minor miracle!Credits: Recorded at the ACT Art Gallery, Berlin Cover art “Welle” (detail) von Manfred Bockelmann

Magnus Öström - e.s.t. 30CD / Vinyl / digital Magnus Öström drums Dan Berglund double bass Magnus Lindgren tenor saxophone, flute Joel Lyssarides piano Verneri Pohjola trumpet Ulf Wakenius electric guitar Love remains... In 1993, three musicians from Sweden, Esbjörn Svensson, Dan Berglund and Magnus Öström formed the band e.s.t.. Svensson and Öström had known each other ever since their first steps into music as children. Neither of them could have anticipated that e.s.t. would become the most influential band in European jazz of the noughties. And when the band formed they probably didn't think they were particularly ‘jazz’ either; all they wanted to do was to play the music which united their passions: rock, pop, classical, folk, improvisation. In the following 15 years, e.s.t. would play thousands of concerts worldwide, release ten studio albums and several live recordings, win awards, gold discs. We all know how the story ends. Or did it really end? And will it ever end? To mark the 30th anniversary of e.s.t., Magnus Öström and Dan Berglund combined forces with close musical friends Joel Lyssarides, Magnus Lindgren, Verneri Pohjola and Ulf Wakenius to give two major concerts, one at the Kölner Philharmonie and other at the Filadelfia church in Stockholm. They played a selection of quintessential pieces from the timeless e.s.t. repertoire, but in a way that has never been heard before. The six musicians, each one a solo artist of international renown, treat the original melodic and rhythmic contours of these tunes with tenderness and affection. The iconic melodies and rhythms are all there, but we also hear how they are opened up again and again, as the musicians immerse them in unexpected warmth and light. These players react to each other in fascinating ways, and there is also a definite tingle in the air as the audience listens to the music in pin-drop silence, then bursts into uninhibited applause atthe end. Magnus Öström reflects on how it feels to play this music today: “The emotions we experience have many layers, the depth of a lifetime. Firstly, it feels like coming home. There is sadness, gratitude, and happiness. And it seems unreal or even surreal and ever so natural at the same time. And you can't stop marvelling at how great this music is. Esbjörn’s compositions and the arrangements that we did together as a trio back then, feel timeless.” And he concludes: “In the end, what remains above all is the conviction that this music should be played and not lying around in a drawer.”“e.s.t. 30” zooms in from the widest of panoramas to the intimacy of the close-up. And from the total silence and weightlessness of space in the opener "From Gagarin's Point Of View" to the heartfelt sincerity of the final track "Believe, Beleft, Below", or as it is called in the later version with vocals: "Love is Real". “If we meet again, I'd tell you how I feel, I'd tell you from the start, I'd tell you love is real.” Love remains.

Iiro Rantala - Tough StuffCD / Vinyl / digital Iiro Rantala piano Conor Chaplin acoustic bass Anton Eger drums Mathias Heise harmonica (guest on Liberty City) Saturday 11 November 2006 was a particularly emotional evening. After almost 20 years together and thousands of concerts all over the world, the Finnish band Trio Töykeät with pianist Iiro Rantala at the helm gave their very last performance. But endings are also new beginnings, and even though it cannot have been easy to disband what was probably the most influential – and was certainly the most humorous – piano trio in Finnish jazz, the decision to bring Trio Töykeät to an end did give Rantala the op- portunity to try out a wide variety of different line-ups in both jazz and classical music, with occasional excursions into rock and pop. It was, notably, Rantala's ACT debut album Lost Heroes in 2011 which kickstarted his second international career. This was follo- wed by further solo and duo albums, spectacular piano summits with Michael Wollny and Leszek Możdżer, among others, as well as orchestral recordings with the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen and members of the Berliner Philharmoniker. More re-cently, Rantala has written a complete Christmas oratorio for the choir Cantores Minores and an opera Die Zaubermelodika for the Komische Oper in Berlin. He has also made several musical pro- grammes for Finnish television and delivers a fortnightly podcast in English, Algoyrtmi, about European jazz. But Rantala has never let go of the idea of playing in a trio again, and now, almost 20 years after the end of Trio Töykeät, the time has come for a new group, the Iiro Rantala HEL Trio. Rantala says: "I'm very happy that I was able to try so many different things out after Trio Töykeät. But just before the pandemic, I had a few gigs with bassist Dan Berglund and drummer Anton Eger, and ever since then I've been dreaming of finally having a regular trio again. However, Dan Berglund was far too busy, and so Anton Eger suggested the UK bassist Conor Chaplin, with whom he had already played for a long time in Marius Neset's band. It's always good when the working relationship between bassist and drummer is already established. The band worked perfectly from the outset, everyone had a lot of fun on and off stage. Anton and Conor are on the road a lot, so I'm very happy that this has worked out for us together." The Iiro Rantala HEL Trio is named after the code for Helsinki airport, from where Rantala's musical ventures tend to start. It sounds both new and familiar. And if there is a hint of nostalgia in the air, it is not coming from the bandleader: "Here's a little story," says Rantala."Anton Eger and Marius Neset, as children, had both heard Trio Töykeät at the Molde Festival. It was one of their first jazz concerts and they became real fans. When we started the HEL Trio, Anton, who knows an enormous amount of repertoire, really wanted to play the Töykeät pieces ‘Gadd A Tee’ and ‘Met By Chance’. My thought was that after nearly two de- cades, it was fine. We changed them a bit, one is now called ‘Tee Four Three’, the other ‘Cabaret Perdu’." ‘Liberty City’, a little- played but much-appreciated track by Jaco Pastorius, reflects Rantala's love of American funk and soul. The piece sits naturally alongside original compositions such as ‘Stockholm Syndrome’, in which Rantala plays with the typical melancholy of Scandinavian jazz...but does it in a way – his way – which manages to be both tongue-in-cheek and deeply felt. The Iiro Rantala HEL Trio is capable of incredible contrasts, and therein lies its appeal. As a pianist, Rantala can take the breath away both with his lightness of touch and the grace of his melodic lines. But then he can transform himself into other, very different characters: there is one who inspires laughter with his rummaging in the piano, another whose pathos, openness and honesty touch every heart. He has a baroque demeanour, his playing is full of relish, so that it only takes a few notes and he already has the audience on his side. At the same time, Anton Eger, with his irresistibly delicate playing fuelled by a wide variety of styles, and Conor Chaplin, with his weighty yet agile grooves on the bass, brings astonishing clarity and sense of form to the music. The HEL Trio should not be mistaken for a nostalgic back-to-the-roots project: "For me, music should always be going forwards," says Rantala. Iiro Rantala's restless, almost hyperactive approach, his urge to try things out and surprise his audience time and again, and his ability to play a wide variety of genres and styles authenti- cally while always sounding like himself make him an exceptional figure among European pianists. Iiro Rantala’s musical journey has been full of twists and turns. Iiro Rantala HEL Trio's album Tough Stuff is another milestone on that journey. And an important one.

Bill Laurance & The Untold Orchestra - BloomCD / Vinyl / digital Bill Laurance piano, fender rhodes mk8, osmose expressive, prophet 6 Rory Storm conductor The Untold Orchestra A series of dark, warm string chords opens the curtain on a vista of spaciousness and great sonic depth.Soon after, an intense rhythm develops, classically light and tightly grooving at the same time. A crystalline piano melody develops over everything, leading into an imaginative, hypnotically intensifying improvisation.Bloom sees 5-time Grammy-winning composer and pianist Bill Laurance once more expanding his sonic palette. He has returned to his classical roots, working with arranger Josh Poole and 18 string players from Manchester’s Untold Orchestra to produce an album on a convincingly epic scale. Conceptually, Laurance says the record was largely inspired by his child’s capacity to imagine and create other worlds: “Every decision we take can be traced back to our capacity to imagine, the only limits on what we can achieve are the scale of our dreams. My child’s ability to pull back the curtain of reality and to create a fantasy world ignited all kinds of possibilities for me, and that is what ultimately led to this music.” Combining Laurance’s classical sensibilities with jazz, pop grooves, and powerful orchestral synchronicity, Bloom runs the gamut of emotions and moods. Whether it’s flowing dreamscapes or dramatic crescendos, listeners are taken to exactly where they want to be, without ever veering off into the predictable.

Magnus Lindgren & John Beasley - Butterfly EffectCD / digital Magnus Lindgren flute, tenorsaxophone, clarinet John Beasley piano According to the "Butterfly Effect", tiny disturbances at one point on the earth’s surface, even the flapping of a butterfly's wings, can trigger huge changes in distant places. For saxophonist/ flautist/ clarinetist Magnus Lindgren and pianist John Beasley, the point of departure here is the smallest possible format for musical interaction, the duo. And it is a starting-point with enchanting consequences.Eleven original compositions – plus an arrangement of the Beatles classic "Come Together" – create musical worlds in microcosm for Lindgren and Beasley to explore together. Lindgren and Beasley’s lively musical minds and vast combined experience are well-known: both musicians are respected and admired worldwide as important, sought-after arrangers in jazz and popular music. Their first album together, "Bird Lives" was garlanded with three GRAMMY nominations and one win. Here, they have accelerated their art, creating what might be called arrangements in real-time.As with "Bird Lives", the appeal of "Butterfly Effect" lies in the fact that the two protagonists have such different musical backgrounds. Magnus Lindgren is from Sweden, and draws from a deep well of European classical music, but also the freedom of jazz and the emotionality of soul and pop. John Beasley is American, and combines a powerful imagination which shines through in his own recordings influenced by his experience of working with Miles Davis, Freddie Hubbard, Steely Dan, Dianne Reeves, his film and TV soundtracks, together with an imposing catalogue of arrangements and compositions for big band."Butterfly Effect" gathers these influences together to create a particularly fine distillate, and one which reveals a completely different side of Lindgren and Beasley from their work with large orchestras and big bands. What this recording delivers in abundance – and what the listener will also inevitably experience as each of these performances takes wing – is the spontaneity and alchemy of their interaction. Credits: Produced by the artists

Júlio Resende - Sons of RevolutionCD / digital Júlio Resende piano Bruno Chaveiro portuguese guitar André Rosinha double bass Alexandre Frazão drums Special Guest: Salvador Sobral vocals on 11 "Júlio Resende has the profound ability to reinvent Portugal's trademark deep, emotional music through the piano," says the respected world music magazine Songlines of the Portuguese pianist/composer. Resende's concept of Fado Jazz is a perfect example of how jazz has become a global language for free musical expression – a concept which has been fundamental to ACT ever since its foundation over 30 years ago.Júlio Resende has dedicated his new album "Sons of Revolution" to the Carnation Revolution of 1974 which brought freedom to Portuguese People and shaped their culture and society as it is today. The peaceful overthrow of dictator Salazar not only paved the way for democracy but also marked the end of colonial wars in Mozambique and Angola. "Without the revolution, I wouldn't even exist," says Júlio Resende. "My father is from Angola, he emigrated to Portugal after the revolution, and met my mother. The freedom to express myself is one of the dearest things to me, and jazz is the music that enables that the most – without any borders or restrictions." That is why the idea of blending Fado and jazz was so natural from the beginning. And Resende’s pioneering work is gaining more and more recognition. "Funnily, it was the Fado musicians who liked the approach from the beginning. For them, Fado is a living art form, with deep roots, but constantly evolving. The jazz musicians took a little longer, but I notice that more and more of them dare to let their own traditions flow more into their music." And yet Resende's music does not merely adapt traditional songs, it thrives on his enchanting, melody-driven original compositions which perfectly embody the spirit of both worlds.Nevertheless, there is one interpretation of a classic tune on the album – "Fado Ponciana for Ahmad Jamal", with which Resende for the first time does not bring jazz to fado, but vice versa. And the result sounds so light and natural, as if this connection had always existed. "Sons of Revolution" features Resende's perfectly synchronized quartet of bassist Alexandre Frazão, drummer André Rosinha, and Bruno Chaveiro on the lute-like guitarra portuguesa. The interplay between Resende and Chaveiro – who is the highly sought-after accompanist of Fado luminaries such as Carminho or Ana Moura, as well as Resende himself – reveal a musical colour very rarely heard in jazz. The same goes for the guest appearance of 2017 Eurovision winner Salvador Sobral on the ballad „A Casa Dela / Her House“, who has a strong jazz background and roots in the Portuguese song tradition. All these exceptional yet organic connections reveal the essence of Júlio Resende's music: freedom, depth, emotional truthfulness and maximum expression. Júlio Resende offers a vivid testimony to how deeply-rooted traditions have remained alive into the present day. Credits: Recorded, mixed and mastered by André Tavares in June 2023, Timbuktu Studios, Lisbon Produced by Júlio Resende

Shalosh - Tales of UtopiaCD / Vinyl / digital Gadi Stern piano and keys David Michaeli double bass Matan Assayag drums Once again the groove is catchy, the way of shaping melodies utterly distinctive; these aspects define the sound of Shalosh. And once again, the trio is incredibly tight – after all, the band’s name does mean “three” in Hebrew. "Heavy jazz!", declared German Rolling Stone magazine; The critic from the british Times found them "full of promise". At Deutschlandfunk, there was talk of "jazz in the fast lane", once again reaching "young jazz fans all over Europe". The French magazine Paris Move writes excitedly the band is “indispensable”. The three musicians, each contribute their musical predilections - jazz, classical music, grunge, rock, techno or folk - into the common organism, in which all these elements are rendered into an exciting mixture. And through their inspirational concerts around the globe, there has been constant further refinement. They take audiences with them by challenging them: this is music which aims to appeal to the heart, engage the intellect and get straight through to the dancing feet.Things could have just gone on as they were, but much has changed since 2020's “Broken Balance”. "It's a different world now," says Gadi Stern, "and you can hear that on the new album. Back then everything was fine, there was more or less nothing missing. But now there's a sense of the end of the world all around us." So, on "Tales of Utopia”, Shalosh have taken their music, their way of telling stories through sound, and placed them in a bigger context. Drawing elements from the Old Testament and the Odyssey, they combine Christian and Greek mythology in a way which is individual...rhapsodic. The connecting of world cultures gives a common thread to the album:A young hero is travelling into the unknown. But what is unknown to him is not just the external world, but also the inner self. Every journey also leads to increased self-awareness, and that makes him stronger. "Tales of Utopia" is about how utopian thinking is based on the preoccupation with one's own self, on concentration and meditation. Keeping that focus well honed functions as the antidote to information overkill.Shalosh envisage their music as a place of refuge. In a crisis-ridden world, their aim is to give strength, comfort and inspiration. and provide support against pandemics, tanks and slogans. Using an episodic structure derived from epic theatre, they present an image of arriving in the big city and being deluged with new impressions. The hero has to find his way through a market alive with strange smells, colours and movement. Then, dramatically, he leaves the metropolis at sunset. We witness a boat being rolled by the waves of the ocean, and also three sisters on an island who take care of the hero, their voices intertwining. The king's dreams come unstuck in all the turbulence, he also receives some poor advice. But all then comes to a happy ending in a Moroccan-inspired wedding song, as a band of friends all gather in one room for a party with handclapping and singing. We are propelled through this timeless story by the wonderful Shalosh sound. It is as if the band has found just the right places to insert all of these stories into a vast painting. The chronology of events has been brilliantly adapted to make the musical flow feel natural. The recording process has also been reimagined. Without headphones or amps, the three recorded their song-like stories in physical proximity to each other, as if playing live. It sounded rougher and more direct, because the room had an acoustic which was so alive. What was important was what the lyrics would trigger musically. "Inside the room we could escape the troubles of the world," recalls drummer Matan Assayag. "For three or four hours we focused on the music and formulated our utopia. That way we could block out the external pressures. That's the meaning behind the title. Our previous album reflected the world outside, this one is about inner harmony." "Tales of Utopia" documents a search for poise and peacefulness. Gadi and Matan have recently become fathers. This positive energy has flowed in. "Art makes the world better" is the way they describe their intentions. "We want to bring beauty into the world and create a feeling that people can be happy in themselves. They have to relearn that, and also place themselves in relation to the constant flood of information so that more and more doesn't actually mean less and less. Our children were the best teachers in this because they are fascinated by small things. That's how you can overcome the destructive." There is more going on here than mere everyday pragmatism. This is exciting music, a panoply of colours and timbres. It invites the listener to be enchanted and to focus on its sheer beauty. It also has deep humanity: rather than striving for perfection, it bristles with energy and vitality. Credits: Music composed, arranged and produced by Shalosh Cover art "Blokeret dør, 2000" by Tal R

David Helbock - Austrian SyndicateCD / Vinyl / digital David Helbock rhodes, synthesizers & effects Peter Madsen piano Raphael Preuschl bass & bass ukulele Herbert Pirker drums Claudio Spieler percussion Guests: Alex Acuña percussion Lakecia Benjamin saxophone Maria João voice Fred Wesley trombone Dhafer Youssef voice Austrian Syndicate…the phrase immediately brings to mind the best-known and most influential of all Austrians in jazz, Joe Zawinul. And yet David Helbock’s project is much more than just a homage to his compatriot. It is a return to the roots of fusion jazz and how things developed from then on. It is also a new direction stylistically for Helbock, who has harnessed a panoply of inspiration with a refreshing openness to new sounds from far and wide. As Helbock himself puts it: "This is close to my heart." Helbock has been able to enlist the best rhythm section in Austria for the Syndicate: Raphael Preuschl on bass and bass ukulele, drummer Herbert Pirker and percussionist Claudio Spieler. The quintet also has an American in it, one for whom becoming Austrian was a matter of choice: pianist Peter Madsen. This Austrian supergroup is also a place where Helbock’s stellar international guests shine brightly: Maria João, Fred Wesley, Dhafer Youssef, Alex Acuña and Lakecia Benjamin. Very much in the spirit of Zawinul who pioneered the use of electronic keyboard instruments and was a giant of fusion jazz, David Helbock is heard here for the first time only on keyboards, leaving all the piano duties to Peter Madsen. "Practically everything I know about music and jazz I learned from him," says Helbock about his former teacher and mentor, and – these days – close friend. A true piano hero, but one little known outside specialist circles, Madsen toured the world with Stan Getz from 1987 onwards, and has since played with many other greats of jazz: musicians who made their names in earlier eras such as Benny Golson, and Stanley Turrentine to major figures from modern jazz like Chris Potter, Joe Lovano or Kenny Garrett, or free jazz heroes like Dewey Redman and Don Cherry. And there are stars of funk too: Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker. In 2001, Madsen moved from New York to Austria, where he met the then 16-year-old Helbock and took him under his wing. Which is why Madsen, in addition to his piano role, is also co-leader of the band, and we also hear his considerable acumen as composer. Raphael Preuschl and Herbert Pirker are also long-time companions of David Helbock and have been the most sought-after bass-drums team in Vienna for over 20 years. Preuschl has also found a particularly individual voice on an unusual instrument, the bass ukulele. Pirker is just as versatile. He plays drums, for example, in Austria's sensational band Shake Stew. Percussionist Claudio Spieler studied with Afghan master drummer Hakim Ludin in his youth, and now performs at major venues with German singer-songwriter Konstantin Wecker and celebrated Austrian multi-percussionist Martin Grubinger. There are fabulous guests too. All are global stars, giving the album both international glamour and the colourful exoticism: the great voice of Maria João from Portugal, Peruvian percussionist Alex Acuña (a member of Weather Report alongside Zawinul in the late 1970s), Tunisian singer and oud virtuoso Dhafer Youssef, who is having huge success with his album "Streets of Minarets" and is playing to sold-out houses; funk mastermind and James Brown acolyte Fred Wesley and saxophonist Lakecia Benjamin, one of the brightest sparks in the American jazz sky right now.This band has a way of communicating energy, surprise, variety and – perhaps above all – fun. Helbock has a way of finding all kinds of outlandish sounds from his synthesisers and keyboard pads, and uses them to kick up sudden thunderstorms. But we also hear subtle jazz improvisation, irrepressible interplay, funk and Latin rhythms and no shortage of Afro-Caribbean flair. It’s all there right from the opener: "Money in the Pocket". Other tracks draw their inspiration from all kinds of intriguing places: dark mysteries from Vienna, Indian Konnakol chanting, King Crimson, acid jazz. Helbock has conjured up all kinds of different moods and vibes. The ending of the album requires something truly special and Helbock does not disappoint. Mozart's "Komm, lieber Mai", an innocent little song which later became a German folk melody, has been dressed up for a party with Cuban rhythms. Maria João is not just playful here, she even invites us briefly away from the party and into a trippy dream sequence. Like the rest of the album, such invitations are instantly and infinitely persuasive. David Helbock's "Austrian Syndicate" welcomes the world into boundless fusion jazz with irresistible grooves. “Austrian Syndicate” might prove to be one of the feelgood – no, make that feel...GREAT! - albums of the year. Credits: Recording Details: Produced by David Helbock

Johanna Summer - ResonanzenCD / Vinyl / digital Johanna Summer piano In early 2020, listeners and the media were delighted, amazed, and taken completely by surprise by pianist Johanna Summer’s debut album “Schumann Kaleidoskop” (Schumann Kaleidoscope). Her improvisational approach to Robert Schumann's “Kinderszenen” also caught the admiration of colleagues from a wide range of musical backgrounds. Star classical pianist Igor Levit’s comments on the album were clear yet heartfelt: “Johanna Summer is an outstanding jazz pianist. She is so centred and at ease with herself, she handles material so confidently and freely...and yet she finds her own right note every time.” Piano poet Malakoff Kowalski found the album simply “scandalously good” and was “enraptured and amazed by an artist who fearlessly follows the music”. And jazz icon Joachim Kühn stated: “Johanna Summer's music is full of fantasy and without category. Coming from European classical music, with a wonderful touch, she creates something perfect and complete. Something her own”. With “Resonanzen” (Resonances) Johanna Summer has extended her extraordinary art and deepened the way she retells the music of classical composers through improvisation. The album spans a wide range, starting with Bach, Schubert, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Ravel and ending with Mompou, Ligeti and Scriabin. Johanna Summer's deep insights into the two worlds of composition and improvisation are the result of the particular path along which she has developed as a musician. In her childhood and youth, she solely studied classical music. Jazz and improvisation came relatively late, but when they did, it was with a powerful focus. Her classical grounding remained in place, and yet there were many things that she needed to re-learn for “Schumann Kaleidoskop” and for “Resonanzen”. As she says: “It was very important that I should master the original pieces first. That was particularly demanding for “Resonanzen”, because each of these very contrasting compositions makes very different demands on me as a player. At the same time, improvisation is also an art which you have to keep practising and developing, so that the music can attain its own natural flow. To do justice to both of these sides, and to find a balance between them, these really are lifelong tasks for me.” The challenge which Johanna Summer sets herself with her improvisational approach, using such diverse and demanding works as her sources, is also proven by the fact that “Resonanzen” was recorded twice, in very different settings, so that the music could flow as naturally and coherently as it does on the album. Johanna Summer remembers: “For the first session I had prepared everything meticulously and went into the studio with the attitude of a real perfectionist...and also with the objective that the new album absolutely had to be better than the previous one. I could hear this way of approaching the music very clearly in the results. In the process of playing, I had already prejudged too much, thought too much and I ended up stopping again and again because I thought it had to be more perfect somehow. That made the spaces so tight for me that I had to constantly squeeze through them.” These first results didn't have the inspiration or the flow which they should have. So a second studio session took place in an atmosphere which was much more like a concert: the programme was played through twice without any interruptions, cuts or analysis, in front of a small audience. “That made all the difference,” she recalls. “The feeling of playing for an audience did something to me. I was finally able to play with freedom because I knew I couldn't stop or do any patching anyway. I could simply allow things to happen and take their course.” Johanna Summer, it would seem, is never content to take the easy option, something demonstrated by the fact she chose the demanding form of a solo piano recital for her debut album, and has now gone on to develop it further in “Resonanzen”. For a young artist to set herself the objective of moving confidently within two musical disciplines, each of which is a challenge in itself – and to make such a success of it – is a remarkable achievement. And even more so because the listener doesn’t hear even the slightest hint of any of the struggle and effort involved in “Resonanzen”. Johanna Summer's playing is so serene, flowing and soulful. There is so much here which is going to amaze and delight. And every time the listeners might feel, that they know what’s next and where the music is headed, there’s another surprise coming up. Credits: Produced by Andreas Brandis & Emanuel Uch

Lars Danielsson - PasodobleCD / Vinyl / digital Lars Danielsson cello, bass Leszek Mozdzer piano, celesta, harmonium Swedish composer, arranger, bassist and cellist Lars Danielsson has to date released three albums on ACT as a leader and plays as a sideman on numerous other ACT releases. He was also producer on the current album of singer Viktoria Tolstoy Pictures of Me. Lars Danielsson is a musician of astonishing versatility. While he was studying classical cello at Gothenburg Conservatory he was listening mostly to rock: Jimi Hendrix, Cream and Santana. Then he happened to see an Oscar Peterson concert on TV with Danish bassist Nils-Henning Ørsted Pedersen This was the beginning of his conversion, from now on the bass was to take first place in his life. His latest work, Pasodoble, is an exciting new duo album, with Leszek Możdżer, an artist who is widely regarded as the most successful and versatile pianist of his home country Poland. Możdżer was already featured with a composition on the ACT-compilation Romantic Freedom (ACT 9749-2), which served as an introduction to the series “Piano Works”. They first met four years ago at a concert in Warsaw. It was musical love at first sight. In the meantime, they have released two successful albums in Poland, “The Time” and “Between Us and the Light” both with Israeli percussionist Zohar Fresco, and have toured together with Danielsson’s latest project Mélange Bleu (ACT 9604-2). Recording a duo album together was only a question of time. In the resulting well-balanced and ageless work, the intimate quality of the two player’s interaction is spellbinding. “Leszek is the perfect piano player for me. It feels like we are from 'the same planet' musically. We started to plan this recording after playing some duo tunes on tour. Siegfried Loch then came up with the idea to make a duo-album. There was a strong connection with just the piano and bass. This way of playing feels like a dream to me. With Leszek, I can go in any direction that the music needs to be taken. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.” (Lars Danielsson) Leszek Możdżer is an exceptional musician and composer, who has won numerous awards in his home country. He has been playing piano since he was five years old, but he only discovered jazz aged 18, when he began connecting jazz and classical music. He was much lauded for his improvisations on themes by Frédéric Chopin. When he is not on tour or in the studio, he collaborates with the two well-known film-music composers Zbigniew Preisner, long-time partner of director Krysztof Kieslowski (“Three Colours”-trilogy), and the Oscar-award-winning Jan Kaczmarek (“Finding Neverland”). He has also worked with acclaimed international jazz musicians, including Pat Metheny, Archie Shepp, Tomasz Stańko, Joe Lovano. And what does Leszek have in common with Pink Floyd? He plays on two tracks of Floyd vocalist/guitarist David Gilmour’s new album “On an island” … „Since the very first gig I felt that Lars is the bassist I want to play with. I don’t need to think about music when he is around. I just feel it. Believe it or not, I was a little nervous before we went into the studio as a duet. I felt that we would need to have some kind of concept, create some magical, charismatic aura, which would save us from being tedious or too sophisticated. Lars just smiled and said: 'We will play music, that’s all'. This experience gave me such a sense of self-confidence and inspiration that the same night I composed two pieces in my hotel room. They are both on the album. When I perform with Lars, I play much better than usually. I hope this cooperation is going to last.” (Leszek Możdżer) The two musicians share a lot of common ground. Their mutual admiration becomes very evident on this, their first duo album. Those who were expecting to hear the occasional standard on the album are in for a surprise. Bass and piano have generated so many ideas that all but one of the tracks – the traditional folksong “Eja Mitt Hjärta”, that Danielsson arranged especially for this album – are original compositions by Lars or Leszek. This proves to be a musical liaison that promises a long and fruitful future.Credits: Produced by Lars Danielsson and Leszek Mozdzer

Esbjörn Svensson - HOME.SCD / Vinyl / Colored Vinyl / digitalEsbjörn Svensson pianoThere are only a few figures in music whose work influences and shapes a genre as a whole. This is undoubtedly true of the Swede Esbjörn Svensson. With his trio e.s.t., the pianist and composer wowed audiences beyond age and genre affiliations. And his influence on jazz as a whole reverberates to this day and already within the second and third generation of musicians worldwide. HOME.S. is Esbjörn Svensson's only solo album and the sheer existence of such a recording and its completely unexpected discovery over a decade after its creation are nothing less than a sensation: Since the early 1990s, Svensson focused almost his entire creative energy and recording activities on his work with e.s.t.. Thus, these new recordings are not only the first, but practically the only ones that show Svensson in a setting other than that of the trio: Intimate, concentrated and completely one with himself. The recordings for HOME.S. were made only a few weeks before Esbjörn Svensson's sudden death on June 14, 2008. Svensson recorded the music in his Swedish home. For almost ten years afterwards, the album rested untouched in his wife Eva's personal archive. In this interview, she tells the story behind the discovery of the album and the music: How exactly did you find this music? After Esbjörn’s passing, I made sure all the contents of his computer were saved to backup hard drives. And then I basically left them untouched for the next ten years. At the point where I eventually felt ready to look into the material, I soon realised that there was something I wanted to look into. I took the hard drive and went to Gothenburg to meet with Åke Linton, the sound engineer who had worked on all e.s.t. albums as well as on their live shows. He was also the one who had helped me to save the material from Esbjörn’s computer in the first place. So he probably already knew that there was something hidden in there. But nobody had listened to it. We went to his studio. And we pressed the start button. Then there was a total silence and we couldn't speak for the entire time the music was playing. After it finished, at first we were not able to say anything, because we were both so touched and surprised that it was all there, and that it was so beautiful. The tracks seemed to follow one another like pearls on a string. After we just had sat there for a while we agreed: This is really good. Musically, but also from a sound perspective. At first Åke wasn't sure if Esbjörn had recorded everything at home and just by himself. So he called different studios in Stockholm that he knew Esbjörn was in contact with and asked them whether he had been there, recording anything. But no, he hadn't been anywhere. I know he had bought some very nice microphones and in the course of touring had learned from Åke how to use them. So it became clear that this music had to have been played and recorded in the basement of our house. So there was nobody with him? He was all alone doing that? He was all alone. In retrospect I have been thinking about it because the few people who know that this exists were asking me if I knew about it. What I did know was that Esbjörn was constantly working, as he always did. He was in the basement, and I could hear him play. But to me, this didn’t raise any questions. Is he doing something? Yes, of course he's doing something. That's what he always did. Rehearsing, practicing, composing. But for me it wasn’t clear that something new was happening. I did know that he was longing to have time to compose and play in different kinds of constellations, but I had no idea that it might be piano solo. Just weeks after making these solo recordings, Esbjörn died. Everything suddenly took on another perspective. There was no way for me to focus on music. All I could do at that time was to make sure all the material he was working on was kept safe.When did you hear the music for the first time? I think it was in 2017 or 18, maybe. This was really the first time? Yes, the first time. After almost ten years. And you kept everything safe and untouched until then? Technically, yes… Well, I don’t know about safety, because it was in the cupboard. *laughs* But safe enough to be released now anyway. Life changed so dramatically after Esbjörn’s passing. For me and for us, it was not just Esbjörn, the musician, it was my husband and the children's father who was gone. That was what we had to deal with and find a way to live without. What made you choose that the time was right to share this with the public? It was really not about choosing the right time. At the time when I heard the music, I simply understood that it was important for me that it happened. To be able to hear it and to have it physically in my hands. And when I realized this, I also wanted to share it with more people. By making an album and having it released, but also, just as importantly, by creating some spaces for myself and for others, to meet and to listen together and to hear the voice of Esbjörn.Do you know where the repertoire of the record comes from? Has any of this been previously written or do you think it’s fully improvised? I think individual tracks and compositions were prepared. At least I am sure there were some kind of sketches. I don't think Esbjörn was just sitting down improvising from start to end. It was not how I remember that he worked. There is actually a lot of sheet music around and I am sure some of it is connected with this recording, but I wasn’t able to go through all of it. Yet. You decided to have the tracks to be named after the letters of the Greek alphabet, and one reason to do so is Esbjörn’s passion for astronomy. Something that also inspired one of e.s.t.’s most popular pieces “From Gagarin’s Point of View”. There is this feeling of being far away from everything, in zero-g with a totally different perspective. And at the same time at great risk. Yes, I could imagine that Gagarin’s adventure and his urge to go to new places must have been so much more thrilling to him than his fear of death. To take that leap out into the universe and taking as opposed to just staying home. I don't think that was an option. In a musical way, Esbjörn was just like that. This is probably why the stars and space were such a big deal for him and what fascinated him about astronomy. At the same time I remember that he said that he in some way regretted that he learned more about it because then some amount of the mystery was gone. He was always keen to look into things that he didn't know that much about. And then in a way try to find out how they work and how they’re connected to other things. In life and in music. He heard something, but he didn't know how to connect it. And then he, and also Dan and Magnus of e.s.t. would explore things together, without any outside guidance. From their childhood days they would just meet at Esbjörn’s house, play around, explore and to find things out. Esbjörn knew the Greek alphabet by heart and also all of the Greek Zodiac signs. So along with this being a metaphor for the desire to explore and discover new spaces, by naming the pieces on the album just by Greek letters, we are not explaining something that we don't want to explain, and we leave space for the listeners to find their own associations with the music. Any closing thoughts? When the solo piano recordings were found at our home it felt like “getting a message smuggled over the border. This music is like having Esbjörn’s voice in the room. It couldn't be anybody else that played. Never. It is his voice. And he still has something to say. And I'm having the chance to let people hear that. My feeling is that we’re doing this together. …Thank you Esbjörn. This is beautiful. Credits: Music composed, recorded, mixed and produced by Esbjörn Svensson in spring 2008 Executive Producer: Eva Svensson Mastered by Åke Linton, Eva Svensson and Classe Persson at CRP Recording AB

Michael Wollny Trio - GhostsCD / Vinyl / digital Michael Wollny piano Tim Lefebvre bass Eric Schaefer drums “All the songs are living ghosts and long for a living voice“ Brendan Kennelly "As an improviser, you often find that it‘s not the compositions themselves you‘re playing, but your own memories of them. And as these memories come back to you in the moment, they assert their continuing existence in the here and now," says pianist/composer Michael Wollny. In other words, songs are like ghosts. Wollny‘s new album "Ghosts" is a gathering of some of the ghosts that regularly haunt him. Typically for Wollny, they range from classics like Franz Schubert's "Erlkönig" to jazz standards, film music, songs with a certain fragility by Nick Cave, say, or the band Timber Timbre, and also include his own darkly evocative original compositions. In addition to Michael Wollny‘s leanings towards scary fantasy, the idea of "hauntology" is an important one for him. This term, which has been a looming presence in debates about pop music for some time, awakens memories of a distant past: forgotten, ghostly and spectral sounds. Wollny: "This perspective, these sounds and not least the term itself have preoccupied me in the past few months – and those reflections have led to the idea of producing a piano trio album dealing with the subject." A ghost album, then, that ventures into the depths of conscious and unconscious memory, sifts through stories originating in the past and which cast shadows on the present. This is a story of the friendly ghosts which surround us...but also of some evil spirits which we thought would never return. The line-up to be heard on "Ghosts" is a direct follow-up from "Weltentraum", an album which now clearly stands as a cornerstone in Wollny's discography, since it established his reputation as an artist "who can turn every conceivable piece of music into an experience to take your breath away" (Die Zeit). American bassist Tim Lefebvre‘s very particular sound and vibe are to be heard on albums by David Bowie, Wayne Krantz and Elvis Costello. Wollny‘s most recent adventure alongside him was the internationally acclaimed project "XXXX". Wollny says: "When you work with Tim, you're not just working with one of the world's top bass players - Tim always has a foot in the world of sound processing, and is constantly expanding his electronic tool-kit. In addition to that, he creates phenomenal clarity in music and in overall sound, which has an unbelievable effect: it gives a shape and an organisation to the music without ever restricting you." Wollny has been playing with drummer Eric Schaefer for almost 20 years. Like Lefebvre, he is also a complete original, a musician with an almost orchestral approach to sound, an unmistakable sense of groove and impressive individuality. "The three of us are aligned in a special , inexplicable way. It‘s hard to describe but the effect is massive," says Wollny. "Last but not least, we are connected by the long time we have spent together. As a trio we have a specific sound, and we are now developing that in a wholly new direction." On "Ghosts", the trio has created a sound in the specific tradition of "Southern Gothic": deep, earthy, full of vibrating, rattling low-tuned strings and drumheads, evoking memories of clapped-out guitar amps, distorted cones of speakers cones. The atmosphere here is oppressively hot, the air heavy with dust. Before "Ghosts" was actually recorded, another trio - Michael Wollny and the two co-producers Andreas Brandis and Guy Sternberg- convened. Brandis, who had already been heavily involved in the concept of "XXXX", brought to the table the concept of an album of songs, with the right people involved. Sternberg - he, as sound engineer, and Wollny had created the sound world of "Wunderkammer", which was to serve as the point of departure for this new album. Wollny says: "Even before the setlist for the album was fixed, I had a very clear sound in mind, which we discussed extensively with Guy and Andreas beforehand." The trio inhabits an acoustic space where nothing is superfluous or goes to waste: the long-dying resonance from a cymbal, drum or plucked string, or a sound from a reverberant surface, all are somehow there in the air. And sometimes all that remains is an acoustic or an electronic echo, a sound that hovers and acquires its own mysterious and spectral existence. All the tracks on the album have one thing in common: each is a snapshot in the life of an individual song. Wollny: "Especially in jazz, there is never one definitive version of a piece. The standards repertoire always haunts you in the best sense of the word, these songs are never finished, they always resurface." And so, when it comes to classics such as "I Loves You Porgy" and "In a Sentimental Mood", Wollny, Lefebvre and Schaefer‘s primary point of reference is not the original compositions, but versions by Nina Simone and John Coltrane / Duke Ellington. And from a time before jazz standards, there are the spirits that inhabit folk songs and which reappear whenever these songs are sung. As, for example, in the traditional Irish folk song "She Moved Through the Fair", which is almost a prototype for the idea that ghost stories are to a large extent also love stories. As is also the case for "Willow's Song" - a seductive and dangerous love song from the legendary soundtrack for the cinema thriller "Wicker Man", a classic of the Nordic horror genre, as strange as it is frightening. Also related to "grand guignol" and nature: a startlingly vivid arrangement of Franz Schubert's "Erlkönig". In addition, in reference to the sultry "Southern Gothic": "Hand of God" by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, audibly dedicated to Wollny's great mentor, whom he describes as the "Hand of God", Joachim Kühn. And furthermore, "Beat the drum slowly" by the band Timber Timbre, a perennial favourite of Wollny's, and "Ghosts" by David Sylvian - perhaps the clearest representation of the themes that characterise "Ghosts": here we find that melodies and sounds can haunt memories that stay either hidden or repressed, and in a way that is at the same time seductive, touching, mysterious and profound. Two original compositions by Wollny find their place naturally in this cleverly selected programme, which is as heterogeneous as it is coherent: first is Wollny's eponymous contribution to "Hauntology", for him "a ‘song without words‘ which comes from another, past or strange, parallel pop world" and then "Monsters never breathe" with its melody that stretches into infinity and could only ever be sung if it were possible to sing without needing to pause for breath. "All the songs are living ghosts and long for a living voice" wrote the Irish poet Brendan Kennelly (1936 - 2021) in one of his most famous poems. For Michael Wollny, this line is a cryptic and yet profound insight. It adds an eerie beauty and serves as a motto for his fascination for the magic of songs which this recording represents. When we talk about ghosts, we look into what seems to be the past, and bring back memories from it into our lives. We as listeners can all believe in the "Ghosts" that the Michael Wollny Trio hear. Because we can all hear them and recognise them.Credits: Recorded by Guy Sternberg at Clouds Hill Studio Hamburg, June 17 & 18, 2022 Assistant: Sebastian Muxfeldt Mixed and sound design by Guy Sternberg Additional sound processing & synths by Tim Lefebvre Mastered by Darius van Helfteren Produced by Michael Wollny Co-producers: Guy Sternberg and Andreas Brandis

Iiro Rantala - PotsdamCD / Vinyl / digitalIiro Rantala pianoiiro Rantala plays the piano with “emotional magnetism and musical intelligence”; he has a “virtuosic prowess as an improviser capable of enormous idiomatic and emotional range.” (Downbeat) This praise from the American magazine’s review of the Finnish pianist’s third and recent studio-recorded solo album for ACT, “My Finnish Calendar” (2019) sums up the astonishing variety which people who know his playing well might almost start to take for granted. The citation for the 2016 JTI Jazz Prize in Trier also does well to define the way audiences take him to their heart: “Rantala can sweep listeners off their feet, he can be clown and magician, charmer and virtuoso, maverick and humorist.” This is the emotional and stylistic versatility which Rantala brings to the live solo recital. It is a form he is drawn to strongly; there can be very few pianists who have explored the art of solo playing quite as as intensively and consistently as Rantala. A typical recital will contain, among other things, pieces from his previous solo albums for ACT “Lost Heroes”, “My Working Class Hero” and “My Finnish Calendar”. As he explains, “I like the form of the solo recital because of the freedom and responsibility I have. Freedom comes from the fact of being alone on stage and responsibility from the fact that I can’t really rely on anything, except myself.” “Potsdam”, recorded live in concert at Nikolaisaal in Potsdam on 27 November 2021 is, however, the first time that one of Rantala’s many live solo recitals has been released as an album by ACT. It is a very fine exposition indeed of the contrast and the continuity of which he is capable, not just in the shape of the recital as a whole, but also within individual tunes. After a beautiful and welcoming “Twentytwentyone”, Rantala launches into “Time for Rag” which sounds like the accompaniment for a madcap Buster Keaton film. The central section of John Lennon’s “Woman” is quite clearly inspired by the driving R&B style of Richard Tee, a pianist whom Rantala particularly admires, but this leads masterfully into an ending which is at first wistful and calm, but then troubled by the Finn leaning into the piano and creating a dark and discomforting mood by plucking a low string. Rantala is eminently capable of Nordic “noir”, then, but he is also naturally, irrepressibly humorous, and his humour has wide appeal. This side of his artistic persona was very much to the fore in a huge recent achievement (in every sense), the composition of his second opera, for children, “ die Zaubermelodika”. Commenta tors noted how the Komische Oper’s stage had been completely taken over by a vast wooden sauna. Humour is also a feature of Rantala’s recent liner notes: such short texts don’t come funnier than his descriptions of the idiosyncratic ways in which Finns respond to the seasons in “My Finnish Calendar”. And, again here, Rantala has painted an extraordinary scene for the liner note to “Potsdam”. Something which could only ever have happened in an imagination as vivid and as genuinely funny as Rantala’s. There also are jokes in his song titles. Just as “Bob Hardy” on the album “My History of Jazz” was a play on the idea of hard bop tunes, so “Can You Be Bob?” on "Potsdam" has all the fast-fingered wizardry of a tricksy bebop tune. And the joke is again in the title. Two of the tunes from “Potsdam” are now available as sheet music, but for one of them the pianist will need to have some additional equipment to hand... The sensitive seasonal evocation of “November” is published as one of the twelve pieces representing the months in Rantala’s popular “Finnish Calendar”. “Freedom”, on the other hand, is one of the twenty tunes in the “Iiro Rantala Songbook” - which also includes evergreens such as “Tears for Esbjörn”. The pizzicato “harpsichord”-ish sound in “Freedom” is achieved by placing a towel over the strings, and the other-worldly broken sound for the jazz solo requires paper to be placed between the dampers and the strings. There is a beautiful inevitability about the final two tunes on the album. The exuberance and brashness which inflect Bernstein’s “Candide” overture right from the first fanfare are irresistible. Rantala follows this, by way of complete contrast, with “Somewhere” from “West Side Story”. Potsdam was recorded the day after the passing of Stephen Sondheim. Rantala explains how deeply this affected him: “Sondheim was magical. As a writer and composer. “West Side Story” is one of the greatest achievements of mankind. And he was so young, when he wrote all those lines: ‘Say it loud and there’s music playing. Say it soft and its almost like praying, Maria’.” Sondheim was one of the greats of the theatre, and there is perhaps some kind of serendipity that his spirit should be recalled so vividly here: Sondheim once wrote: “the whole idea of getting across to an audience and making them laugh, making them cry - just making them feel - is paramount to me.” It sums up admirably and exactly what this very great pianist achieved – one evening in “Potsdam”. Credits: Live in concert at Nikolaisaal Potsdam, 27.11.2021 Recorded, mixed and mastered by Martin Ruch Cover art by Karl Horst Hödicke: Rotes Eck, 1979 © Deutsche Bank Collection (The World on Paper)

Joel Lyssarides - Stay NowCD / Vinyl / digital Joel Lyssarides piano Niklas Fernqvist bass Rasmus Blixt drums Joel Lyssarides is Sweden’s rising piano star of the moment. And whereas awareness of him beyond Sweden’s borders may still be restricted to assiduous followers of the scene, his listening figures speak for themselves. Recordings by the pianist, born in 1992, are already among the most listened to in European jazz; on Spotify alone he has reached well over 50 million plays. And yet these huge numbers are not the result of any calculation, audience targeting or 'crowd-pleasing' on the pianist's part. He explains: “As happy as I am that a lot of people obviously like my music a lot and want to listen to it again and again, the creative impulse always comes from within me. Me and my piano, they’re at the centre of my musical world.” His ACT debut “Stay Now”, Joel Lyssarides’ third album, is a dazzling and vivid insight into that world. One thing is abundantly clear: the time has arrived for Lyssarides to step out onto the international stage. Joel Lyssarides is not yet thirty, and so the things he has already achieved musically are quite staggering: he has played countless concerts either solo or with his trio; he has collaborated with jazz, classical, blues and pop artists such as trombonist Nils Landgren and singer Viktoria Tolstoy, including her current album “Stations”... But he has also worked with YouTube phenomenon “Dirty Loops”, and with the great Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter. And despite Joel Lyssarides’ evident and impressive versatility and adaptability, jazz is at the very core of his work. The initial spark came from records by Miles Davis, Charlie Parker and Thelonious Monk and others which were played in his Swedish-Greek parents' home. Thereafter came the music of Chick Corea, Keith Jarrett and Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Lyssarides studied music in Stockholm and Rome, and it was not long before recognition came in the form of numerous national and international jazz prizes. In just under ten years, Joel Lyssarides has received almost twenty of them, notably the Swedish Society of Composers’ Prize, the Bengt Säve-Söderbergh Award, the “Jan Wallander Award” and, in 2019 at only 26 years of age, Musician of the Year from Swedish Radio.  For Joel Lyssarides jazz is above all a language, a tool for uniquely personal expression. He composed the pieces for “Stay Now” in a remote house in the forest, a good half-hour outside Stockholm. And by preference at night, in silence, darkness and deep concentration. The atmosphere of this place is audibly reflected in the music, which is strongly influenced by space, sound and mood - reinforced by the highly concentrated, differentiated, subtle interplay of pianist Lyssarides with bassist Niklas Fernqvist and drummer Rasmus Blixt. The Swedish magazine “Lira” states: “Even though the concept of jazz is a very extensive one, it is too narrow of a description for the music of this trio.” What these three young musicians have in common is their capacity for great sensitivity and expressiveness. Their music is based on a vocabulary that draws equally from European classical music, jazz from both sides of the Atlantic and great songwriting, with all its depth and accessibility. And yet this has nothing to do with crossover. Everything flows and swings, nothing seems deliberate or contrived, one can hear a natural understanding for the infinite possibilities of every note. This trio has the self-confidence to put the entirety of their efforts into enhancing the expressiveness of the music.  And it is in the most intimate, quiet, focused and concentrated moments that the most spectacular things happen. The album title “Stay Now”, therefore, is above all an acknowledgement of quite how precious the here and now is. These are the moments when we start to understand the true value of present and past encounters. As we listen, we can let the moment linger… and allow ourselves to sink blissfully and unforgettably into it. Credits: Produced by Joel Lyssarides Recorded by Joar Hallgren at Nilento Studio, Gothenburg, September 7-8, 2021 Sound design, mix and mastering by Lars Nilsson Cover art by Manfred Bockelmann

Júlio Resende - Fado JazzCD / digital Júlio Resende piano Bruno Chaveiro portuguese guitar André Rosinha double bass Alexandre Frazão drums Lina vocals (on Profecia) “Since 1992, ACT has been building its own European union of musicians,” wrote The Times (UK) in 2020, “fostering a freedom of movement between nationalities and genres, and has given us an authentic impression of what the continent is about.” This statement becomes particularly resonant and relevant again with the signing of an artist new to ACT, Portuguese pianist Júlio Resende. "Fado Jazz" marks his debut on the label, revealing another fascinating dimension to European jazz, and one which has been relatively little heard: Resende’s art is not just to translate the bittersweet melancholy of fado into the language of jazz, but its lighter side as well. Resende is a genuine pioneer whose profile within Portugal is already substantial. He fills classical concert halls, he has been high up in the Portuguese pop charts, the tribute he made in 2013 to the “Queen of Fado”, Amália Rodrigues, was particularly well received, and he has also performed in a duo with classical piano legend Maria João Pires. His music has also been heard accompanying series on both HBO and Netflix. The leading Spanish broadsheet newspaper "El Pais" says of him: "Júlio Resende's approach to fado is reminiscent of what Keith Jarrett does with jazz standards"; and Alex Dutilh, one of the most renowned and influential jazz journalists in France, says: "Júlio Resende, the latest discovery on the Portuguese scene, is also the most promising. His playing is on a par with pianists such as Stefano Bollani or Yaron Herman."  For the Portuguese, fado is anything but a museum-piece, it is music which represents an attitude to life. On the one hand it is history which is being lived through, while on the other it is constantly in a state of flux. It carries with it a whole sweep of history, from stories about the anguish of girls and women as their sailors and menfolk leave them for the high seas, it takes in the oppression of the Salazar regime, then the hopes of the Carnation Revolution in the 1970s, right through to the lively, cosmopolitan Portugal of today. And just as society has metamorphosed, so the varieties of fado and the ways it is perceived have changed too. The icons of this music are national heroes, while the younger performers connect with an audience of their generation as a matter of course, and this in its turn inevitably opens fado up to other influences, such as pop music and the musical traditions of other cultures. Júlio Resende's view of fado from the perspective of jazz is something new, but it has developed organically and naturally from what had gone before. His intentions have nothing to do with crossover. As he says: "I really don't know if what I do is fado or jazz. Maybe it is both. I don't want to commit myself, because if you commit yourself, you stop developing. I prefer to move freely, like the sounds themselves." Almost all the tracks on "Fado Jazz" are original compositions by Júlio Resende, which gives another clear signal that he is not concerned with either adapting and reconfiguring the past, but rather with developing the music further. The opener "Vira Mais Cinco" is an example of this. Here we find an irresistible melody, the unique sound of the Guitarra Portuguesa, the lute-like instrument that is part of the traditional fado line-up and that creates a unique timbre from the influences of North Africa and Southern Europe that are so characteristic of this music. But there are also piano, percussion and double bass, by no means classic fado characters, but which nonetheless sound as if they had always and naturally belonged to it. And finally, the piece dances in 5/4, which gives it a twist that is as unusual as it is organic. It is these connections that make Resende's music sound so new and interesting, and yet at the same time accessible and natural. Fado, in both its traditional and modern forms, has become popular way beyond the borders of Portugal, and that is at least in part because of the wonderful voices associated with its main exponents, and their ability to convey feelings so immediately and vividly. But there is more to Fado’s appeal, namely the melodies which speak so directly to the heart and bring audiences to the brink of tears. And there are plenty of those on the album "Fado Jazz": ballads like "Lira", "Este Piano Não Te Esquece", "All The Things - Alfama - Are" or the gyrating "Fado Blues" and the simply stunningly beautiful "Tiro No Escuro" play with the feeling of "Saudade" (longing and melancholy) so typical of fado. But there are also pieces with a much lighter step, such as like "Vira Mais Cinco", "Fado Das 7 Cotovias" (in 7/4), the lively "Fado Maior Improvisado" or the bolero-inspired "Tiro No Escuro". And at the very end, we hear a voice, that of the young yet massively popular “fadista” Lina, who, in Júlio Resende's composition "Profecia" finds a magical yet completely unsenti-mental way to express every luminous nuance. Credits: Recorded by André Tavares at Atlantico Blue Studios, July 2020 Mixed by André Tavares and Júlio Resende Mastering by André Tavares Produced by Júlio Resende

Joachim Kühn - Touch the LightCD / Vinyl / digitalJoachim Kühn piano“Maybe when I’m ninety...?” When Siggi Loch first floated the idea that Joachim Kühn might like to make an album of ballads, the pianist’s response was typically jocular, even defiant. That initial resistance didn’t last long, however. Kühn, now in his mid-seventies, soon started to settle down at the fine Steinway in his home – he keeps it impeccably tuned – to switch on his DAT recorder, and set to work. “The advantage of being here at home in Ibiza is that I can simply make a recording when I want to. When the feeling comes, I just record,” Kühn reflects.Over a period of about fifteen months he sent a total of some forty individual tracks to Siggi Loch. He would often take pieces, re-think them, and end up sending off sever al different versions to Berlin. So what emerges on this new solo piano album “Touch the Light” is a distillation from those individual takes, all made on the same piano and in the same space. It flows extremely well as a coherent and delightful programme. There are pieces here which re-visit im portant phases in a fascinating and varied career. “A Remark You Made” by Joe Zawinul has a special and deep personal resonance for Kühn. It takes him straight back to a pivotal moment: Zawinul was a juror at the 1966 Gulda competition in Vienna, the event which facilitated the 22-year-old pianist's escape from East Germany. Gato Barbieri’s theme from “Last Tango In Paris” recalls not just the fact that Barbieri enlisted Kühn in 1972 to play on the soundtrack, but it is also a tune he would play countless times later, in his trio with Daniel Humair and Jean Francois Jenny-Clark. And the Allegretto from Beethoven’s 7th Symphony not only brings to the fore a composer whose music has always made the deepest of impressions on Kühn, but also the fact that his physical resemblance to Beethoven often resul ted in fellow musicians – notably Gordon Beck, with whom he worked on the Piano Conclave project in the 1970’s – giving him the nickname Beethoven. The variety of Kühn’s pianism in this collection is quite remarkable. The listener is first welcomed into the inviting, comforting and regular pulse of Mal Waldron’s “Warm Canto”. And yet later, by complete contrast, Kühn’s own composition “Sintra” gives a masterclass in freedom, delay, and the alche mical art of keeping the listener waiting on tenterhooks. Prince’s “Velvet Rain” is achingly soulful, whereas Kühn found the encouragement to re-visit Bill Evans’ “Peace Piece” from the dignity and restraint of classical pianist Igor Levit’s version of it. Joachim Kühn can show us ineffable lightness of touch in the Allegretto from Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony. But he can also be forceful, as he gives full and sonorous arm weight to Barbieri’s “Last Tango” theme. There are also homages to the melodic gifts of some reeds players: “Warm Canto” recalls the way Eric Dolphy on clarinet hovers over the melody on the album “The Quest”, and the spaciousness of Milton Nascimento’s composition “Ponta de Areia” clearly keeps in mind the airy, touchingly lyrical voice of the great Wayne Shorter. Above all, however, it is in the simplicity and the sheer delight in melody of his own com positions that Kühn both touches the heart and gives us the greatest surprises on this album. “Sintra” is a tune written down in a peaceful mo ment outside a cafe in the one-time sanctuary of the Portugue se kings. And the title track “Touch the Light” captures the beauty of the sunset over the sea that Kühn often contemplates from his terrace. Kühn’s remark about that tune is also true of the album as a whole: “There’s a lot of love here. And joy.”

David Helbock’s fine musicianship goes hand in hand with a remarkable ability to communicate on several levels. As British writer Peter Bacon has written, there is “much to intrigue the mind, much to warm the heart and much to tickle the funny bone.” German critic Roland Spiegel has elegantly described his music as “never cerebral, but capti-vating both the head and the body....” For his new album the Austrian-born pianist brings those strengths and that ability to engage and appeal to audiences into a new and different venture. “It was my wish to cool things down a bit,” he explains. He has formed a new trio with guitarist Arne Jansen and trumpeter Sebastian Studnitzky, and it is clear when he talks about it how far he has already moved on since his previous group: “In the Random Control Trio we had a lot of instruments on the stage, there was a lot of changing from one instrument to another… and a lot of notes.” And the new group? “It is more about emotions. And emotions are the most important thing in music.” This trio has are other differences from his previous groups: in the past, his bands have been made up of musicians from his native Austria. But he has now been living in Berlin for five years, and “The New Cool” presents his first group formed with players who have also adopted Berlin as their home city. With Arne Jansen, originally from Kiel, what appeals to Helbock is that “he is such an unselfish player, very centred and very calm – and subtle too. With him it’s all about the music.” Studnitzky is originally from the Black Forest, and Helbock likes “his style of playing with that very airy sound” and the fact the range of timbres and moods he creates with just one effects device. And how does it work in the trio? “All three of us are melody players, but we are all capable of holding back and giving space to the others.” It would be wrong, however, to see the elegaic feel of much of this album as a response to the pandemic. Helbock and producer Siggi Loch were having “a productive and fruitful discussion” about these ideas a full year before the recording sessions took place at the Emil Berliner studios in August 2020. Loch has a fascination for the way cool jazz “turned the wheel around” to connect with a wide audience, and references and connections with the cool jazz movement are scattered throughout this album. It is also the very first time that Helbock has included a tune by his teacher for over a decade, American pianist Peter Madsen, who toured extensively with Stan Getz and also taught Maria Schneider. While the overall mood and vibe of “The New Cool” tends towards the lyrical and the spacious, the range of expression is remarkably wide. The fine filigree piano opening of “I Feel Free” is in complete contrast to the anthemic grandeur which the trio reaches at the peak of “Angel Eyes”. Helbock also has a remarkable way of setting the tone of piece from the very first utterance: “Hymn for Sophie Scholl” is softly elegaic, whereas the forward momentum of “Truth” sounds like it could easily do duty as a film or TV theme. Helbock has been inspired by the innovations and concepts of Lennie Tristano, and his sense of affinity with the Chicago-born genius runs deep. Tristano once decreed that "the jazz musician's function is to feel.” Helbock Jansen and Studnitzky have taken that maxim to their hearts. In “The New Cool” it becomes a totally convincing and natural way to make music; and to be.

Nils Landgren - KristallenCD / Vinyl / digital Nils Landgren trombone & vocals Jan Lundgren piano The duo is the most reduced way of making music together. At the same time it can open a whole musical world without borders. Two musicians acting as one and in a dialogue at the same time. Call and response - it's jazz in its purest form. Sometimes less is more… The musical world of “Kristallen” relishes the moment when the surfaces and edges of crystals shimmer and cast off unexpected colours. There is a certain stillness, and also room for the imagination to unfold. Magic with fragility. Nils Landgren and Jan Lundgren have a con-sistent vision of lyrical chamber jazz which flows gently and naturally. Rather than clamouring for our attention, this is music which reveals its true beauty the more attentively one listens. The tone of the album is set from the opening track, “Blekinge”, a reminiscence of the tranquil part of Sweden from which Jan Lundgren hails. It is sublimely light yet thoughtful, a subtle musical language which draws on Swedish folk music and tinges it with jazz. The next track “Byssan Lull” follows on seamlessly: a solemnly intoned folk melody develops into a lively blues. “Hornlåtar” features delightful interplay between trombonist and pianist who take some of the traditional short horn calls from the Swedish tradition and subtly adapt them. This track brings back memories of the 1997 duo recording with Esbjörn Svensson, “Swedish Folk Modern”. Two other pieces also have a profound personal significance for Nils Landgren: “Olu” was on his album ”Gotland” (1996), recorded with Polish trumpeter Tomasz Stańko who died in 2018. Finally, “Värmlandsvisan” is a homage to Landgren’s native land.In addition to his own compositions, Jan Lundgren has included tunes by two inspirational pianists: “Country” by Keith Jarrett and “The Wedding” by Abdullah Ibrahim. To complete the selection, there are also pieces from the Great American Songbook and Beatles songs. The wonderfully instinctive way in which Nils Landgren and Jan Lundgren interact could already be admired on the Leonard Bernstein tribute “Some Other Time”. Now with just the two of them, their sixth sense, their authentic feeling for the same musical styles is all the more evident. A Nordic spirit, deeply romantic emotions, impressionistic colouring and an affirmation of the American jazz tradition: all of these pervade “Kristallen” and bring a special magic to it. Through their deep affinity and their cohesion, this duo has meticulously shaped a radiant and many-hued musical diamond.