Live Concert – musicophilesblog – From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms

Finally A New Keith Jarrett Solo Live Album – Munich 2016

Keith Jarrett Live Concerts

Keith Jarrett is without doubt one of the most important, if not THE most important artists alive today in the space of solo piano improvisation.

Seeing one of his live concerts finally triggered me to start this blog now more than 4 years ago, and I’ve already reviewed a lot of his live albums (always on ECM) as well, including Paris, A Multitude Of Angels, Bregenz München, La Scala, and Bremen Lausanne.

Each of these albums is worth having, my ratings typically are either 4 or 5 stars.

So I was obviously very happy when Jarrett finally released a new (well, 3 years old) solo concert recording again.

Keith Jarrett – Munich 2016 (ECM 2019)

This album was recorded live in Munich in July 2016, about one year after my “own” live experience in Lucerne, and it has a very similar feel.

Jarrett has moved away from the very long improvisations of the Köln concert era to shorter pieces, simply titled “Part”. The concert is split into 12 parts, with roman numerals, plus two encores.

Don’t be afraid by the slightly atonal start in Part I, there is so much more to come.

Part V for example is are the kind of melodic improvisations that fans of the Köln concert (including me) are just loving so much

Part VI and VIII are yet another of the slowly flowing parts, 5 minutes of absolute bliss.

In part IX, Jarrett all over sudden starts a boogie woogie. For most other artist, this would make me run away. Not so with Jarrett, here it is just 3 minutes of a lot of fun, which he’s clearly having.

I personally am not such a big fan of when Jarrett goes much more crazy like in part VII, but these wilder improvisations are typically short.

And I’m so happy to report, that nearly 20 years after La Scala, Jarrett goes back to Somewhere Over The Rainbow as his final encore. And in a way, this improvisation is even better. It must be my sentimental side, but I just love this song.

So in total, this album is an absolute joy!

My rating: 5 stars

You can get it here (Qobuz)

Michael Wollny Klangspuren (Live in Hamburg) – A Review

How did I miss this?

There is a live Wollny trio album out there and I only find out about it a year later. How is this possible? My bad.

Especially after I’ve attended his concert in Basel just some weeks after this album was released (see my concert review here).

But well, better late than never.

Michael Wollny Trio In Concert: Klangspuren – Live in Hamburg (ACT 2016)

I’m a big Wollny fan (thanks to an old friend from highschool who initially introduced me to him). See for example my reviews of his album Nachtfahrten, or my mention of one of his previous live albums in my 9 Outstanding Live Jazz albums. His album Weltentraum was also mentioned in my 25 Essential Jazz albums.

Michael Wollny Trio In Concert Klangspuren Live in Hamburg ACT 2016

This album is very close in spirit (and material) to the live concert I saw at Kaserne Basel in 2016. Given that it is to a large extend based on his Nocturne-style album Nachtfahrten, it has a lot of long, quiet, but intense passages. My favorite song is White Moon.

Wollny plays with his usual trio of Christian Weber and Eric Schaefer.

But don’t worry, the lion Wollny is occasionally let out of his cage for one of his more improvising elements.

Looking back at his recent studio albums, I rated Weltentraum a full 5 star, while Nachtfahrten was still nice, but only received a 4 star rating.

When we get to live albums, I´d suggest you get one of the Weltentraum live albums first, but this album is still very much worth having.

Wollny remains one of the most important Jazz pianists of our days.

My rating: 4 stars

You can find it here (Qobuz) and here.

FYI, If you prefer to buy it as a physical album you also get a collectors edition that includes a DVD.

GoGo Penguin Live At Moods, Zürich – May 8, 2016 – A Review

Jazz has a problem. An age problem. I go to many Jazz concerts, and unfortunately, the typical spectator at such a concert is male, middle-aged at least, and grey haired.

I guess the times of Jazz being the music of the cool kids is over since the 1960’s, and overall this genre has been niched too much as intellectual, and has very little presence in the mainstream media and the public mind. Women and younger people are often clear minorities at this kind of concert.

Therefore I was very happy to see that I was able to attend a Jazz concert where not only the musicians where all in their early thirties, but the average age of the audience must have been not more than 25! Also both genders were pretty much equally represented. A very refreshing sight.

So who was able to pull these younger crowds into Moods, the best Jazz club in Zurich?

GoGo Penguin Live At Moods

Well, obviously we’re talking about GoGo Penguin. I’ve already praised their recent release Man Made Object previously, and was very happy to have such a musically rewarding weekend after seeing Michael Wollny’s trio just the day before.

So, how did it go?

Well, first of all, I was impressed. The trio sound of GoGo Penguin is very much influenced by Electronica, so I imagined a fair share of Logic Pro or Ableton computer wizardry going on on the album.

Well, I obviously was mistaken. While they had their sound engineer with them, and I saw a Macbook connected to the mixing console, the ludicrous speed you here on their albums is nothing but exactly the same what they are pulling off live!

GoGo Pengui Live At Moods May 8 2016 1

Bassist Nick Blacka pictured above was just impressive. Although I was sitting in the first row, I could sometimes barely follow his fingers, they were that fast. And he made generous use of the bow, which is always a nice change.

GoGo Pengui Live At Moods May 8 2016 2

Chris Illingworth on piano sounded at times like a reborn Esbjörn Svensson, but this is probably one of the best compliments you can make to any Jazz pianist.

The real hero of the evening however was Rob Turner on drums.

GoGo Pengui LIve At Moods May 8 2016

The way he kept the beats of amazing syncopating complexity and even crazier speeds was just breathtaking. His pulsating bass drum was of drum machine precision, and was one of the key factors why this evening was so absorbing musically.

Obviously, this is not very traditional Jazz. There was some improvisation, but the music lived much more of the groove and in many moments sounded way more like Drum-and-Bass than Dave Brubeck.

But this is really what we need. Miles Davis famously said “It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating they have to be about change.”

EST really gets the credit for having started to modernize the Jazz trio. But here we truly have a worthy successor!

This is the kind of change I’d love to see more of!

Check out their concert schedule and if they come anywhere near you, you just have to go!

P.S. To close, some impressions of the Schiffbau buildin, where Moods is located, a former ship yard and industrial site, beautifully converted into a complex for theater, dining, and Jazz. Worth checking out if you’re ever in Zurich