Joachim Kühn Band Don't Stop me Now

In 2009, together with Moroccan oud and guembri virtuoso Majid Bekkas and Spanish percussionist Ramon Lopez, Joachim Kühn recorded "Out of the Desert", the follow-up to their celebrated debut "Kalimba" which was described as "pure magic" (Jazzthetik). "Out of the Desert", praised for its "previously unheard sound" (Kulturspiegel) went on to win the German Record Critics Award. It was this "desert jazz", which culminated in 2011 with the powerfully organic and incredibly intense "Chalaba", that Stötzler suggested that Kühn transpose this to a greater dimension, that the trio’s African inspired improvisations should fuse with the diverse sound repertoire of the big band. Kühn was immediately taken with the idea of playing with the Frankfurter big band because, as he says, "they put their whole heart and soul in it"…

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.

“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 defi-ant. 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 re-cording when I want to. When the feeling comes, I just re-cord,” Kühn reflects.

French saxophonist Émile Parisien, instigator of some of the most musical, formidably skilful yet wackily diverting adventures in recent European jazz, makes a rare UK visit in a duo at November’s London jazz festival, but this exuberant album rams home the full Parisien experience, with a new quintet, regular accordion partner Vincent Peirani, and two revered European elder statesmen in German pianist Joachim Kühn and French bass clarinet original Michel Portal. From the opening vibrato-trembling soprano sax Préambule (Parisien can be a spiky avantist, but he’s a devoted Sidney Bechet admirer, too), through the hard-swinging Poulp – which sounds like the work of a 21st-century Hot Club band with Ornette Coleman leanings – through the contemporary-noir doom-walk of Brainmachine or the accordion-throbbing Umckaloabo, Parisien leads an exhilarating genre-hop bubbling with captivating remakes of US and European jazz traditions. And Kühn, a majestic soloist inside or outside conventional harmony, sounds as if he’s been an instantly responsive communicator with this lineup – and particularly the leader – for years.

If we are part and product of chance, should we play with it? Having worked together for many years as musician and sound engineer, two improvisers break out of their comfort zones. Piano icon Joachim Kühn and electronica experimentalist Klaus Scheuermann alias „Trummerschlunk“ explore the potential of the unlikely: a collaboration across generations, genre boundaries, and long established professional roles.

The youthful old jazz master has a new dream team: clear, with buckets of soul and unconfined joy, solidly grounded in the groove, this trio has a way of going straight to the heart of the matter.