Alone Janek Schaefer

The exciting Berlin trio Michael Wollny / Eva Kruse / Eric Schaefer present their third album: no easy task, after all of the last few years’ critical praise that has accompanied the two previous albums they recorded for ACT, and the same critical acclaim has followed their live performances.
At its best, and in its greatest moments, jazz is the art that unearths the universal elements that lie buried in each individual. The ad-hoc arrangements of many jazz recordings stand in stark contrast to this aspiration, and to escape the curse of the smallest common denominator, it’s also necessary to have a fixed formation in jazz. Yet especially in German jazz, groups that remain together and come out with new CDs over a longer period of time are the exception…

Krzysztof Komeda has legendary status in Polish jazz, and was also one of the pioneers of European jazz. His wider fame resides largely in his work as a film composer – he wrote the soundtracks for all of Roman Polanski’s early films, notably "Dance of the Vampires" and "Rosemary's Baby". Komeda died in 1969, tragically early, at the age of just 37, but left a hugely influential body of work. Joachim Kühn, now a jazz piano icon in his own right, is a great admirer of Komeda, whom he met in person in Warsaw in 1965. As part of the Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic concert series, curated by Siggi Loch, he performed a major tribute concert to him on 14 October 2022, at which he played in three formats: solo piano, with his New Trio, and alongside Poland’s Atom String Quartet.

The Beatles Concerto is an instrumental musical medley arranged and composed by John Rutter within a classical "Piano Concerto Form". (Source: Wikipedia)

This release owes its original inspiration to a book published in 2013 entitled “Nachtmeerfahrten” (Sea Journeys by Night), which takes the reader over to the dark side of romanticism, to a world of fantasy, of eerie shadows, and things that go bump in the night. Producer Siggi Loch edited the “Meer”/ sea part out of the title, which therefore became “Nachtfahrten” (Night Journeys), which suits this pianist, who is a creature of the nocturnal realm. He feels very much at home in a world of grey cats and blurred outlines, where the contrasting emotions of the moment can leave all rational expectations behind; this is a backdrop which is alive with possibility, but…