Jochen Rückert

Led by German trombonist Nils Wogram, the creative jazz quartet Root 70 was formed in 2000. All four bandmembers were born (or, as the group's name suggests, rooted) in the '70s – two in Germany and two in New Zealand – and their performing and recording careers have included a number of international collaborations. Beginning with his 1994 debut disc recorded in New York, Wogram has released over 20 albums as a leader or co-leader in a wide variety of settings ranging from post-bop to free improvisation, collaborating with the NDR Bigband and helming such ensembles as his Septet, his Quartet, and his Nostalgia threesome.

Nils Wülker has grown in the last twelve years to be one of the most successful jazz trumpeters and jazz composers in Europe. Born in Bonn in 1977, he was taking piano lessons at seven, switched to the classical trumpet when he was nine, finally discovered jazz at the age of sixteen on an exchange year in the USA and progressed via Us3’s smash hit “Cantaloop” and its original composer Herbie Hancock to Miles Davis. Back in Germany, he was picked in 1996 for North Rhine-Westphalia’s JugendJazzOrchester NRW, in which he played until he began studying jazz at the Hanns Eisler conservatoire in Berlin. He kept playing throughout his studies, whether in Peter Herbolzheimer’s BuJazzO, the RIAS Bigband or Thärichen’s Tentett, and by the time he graduated in 2002, Nils Wülker had already released his enthusiastically received and highly acclaimed debut album “High Spirits” – with the likes of Gene Calderazzo and Orlando Le Fleming – as the first German jazz musician in the SONY Music artist roster.