Already the title-giving play on words “Brazilian Blues” breaks with relish with hardened-traditional ways of looking at what Brazilian music is and what the blues may be. Knowing full well how juvenile-moving the essence of music constantly seeks new points of contact and forms of expression, Stefan Koschitzki and Fabiano Pereira bypass all phrase-mongering on their new album “Brazilian Blues Vol. II”. The two musicians, arrangers and composers see their project “Brazilian Blues” as a vehicle for the constant expansion of their collective musical language. It is about respectable things throughout: searching and finding new attitudes and current perspectives on traditional music styles such as blues and bossa nova. Of course, you have to understand the subtle nuances of both styles first…
more infos: https://www.glm.de/en/product/stefan-koschitzki-fabiano-pereira-brazilian-blues-vol-ii/
listen to the music: https://glmmusic.de/BrazialianBluesVolIIWE
Brazil was declared the “Land of Bossa Nova” with the million-fold success of the album “Getz/Gilberto” in the 1960s, as if it had been transformed overnight into the figurehead or postcard of a single musical style. But this was far from being a new phenomenon for the country. Years before, Carmen Miranda had already enchanted Hollywood, with the result that not only Brazil but all of South America was reduced to one figure: the stereotype of the cheerful, exuberantly partying, carnivalesque and naive samba musician.
As for so many people, the two pandemic years were a challenging time in many respects for creatives like Cologne trumpeter, composer and arranger Christian Winninghoff, a member of the Jazzkantine and the Cologne Contemporary Jazz Orchestra. Because jazz from the ivory tower was never his thing. His music has always sounded energetic and groovy, more suitable for the atmosphere of a densely packed, heated club than for a ventilated concert hall with a masked audience, possibly even arranged in a checkerboard pattern.
The great writer Gertrude Stein once said: “Jazz is tenderness and powerful violence.” A definition that has shaped the pianist Cornelius Claudio Kreusch already at the beginning of his career – and which now again perfectly applies to his new album “Eye of the Storm”. Whereby improvisation as the primal ground of these strong forms of expression is absolutely part of it.
The title of Giovanni Costello’s new album “In alto Mare” has never sounded so topical. After all, we have been “on the high seas” for some time now – in the sense applied to Corona and the world situation – and in troubled waters at that. At the mercy of the whims of nature and fate, but also set out for new shores and on a journey. All of which flows into Costello’s album, even if it shines primarily in Italian colors, because it depicts Costello’s career path and experiences all around: From Cantautori songwriting and jazzy crooner vocals to international pop and funk.