Special Jakob Magnusson

Singer Fay Claassen and trumpeter/composer Jakob Helling first met in summer 2022 for concerts and recordings with the "Jakob Helling Concert Big Band". Now this delightful encounter continues with slightly fewer musicians on stage: the two have a fantastic band in tow, featuring Matthew Halpin (sax), Mátyás Bartha (piano), Ivar Roban Križić (bass) and Mario Gonzi (drums), some of the most exciting musicians in the German-speaking world. The programme ranges from some pieces from the brand new album "Nerds & Sweeties" by the "Jakob Helling Concert Big Band" to arrangements from the Great American Songbook, which Helling has breathed new life into, to the musicians' own compositions. You can look forward to an entertaining concert evening full of joyful playing and virtuosity paired with arrangements that stimulate both the brain and the heart.

With Uma Elmo, his fifth album as a leader for ECM, Danish guitarist Jakob Bro presents a new trio featuring Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen and Spanish drummer Jorge Rossy. Astonishingly, given the trio’s musical synergy, the first time these three musicians ever performed together was for the album’s sessions at the Swiss Radio studio in Lugano, with ECM founder Manfred Eicher producing. Uma Elmo reaffirms the observation about Bro’s work by London Jazz News that “there is no hurry to this music, but there is great depth.” Among the album’s highlights is opener “Reconstructing a Dream,” a darkly lyrical reverie.

On Remembering, the Danish cellist Jakob Kullberg continues his collaborations with two of the foremost Nordic composers: Per Nørgård and Kaija Saariaho. Praised internationally for his performances of the modern cello concerto, Kullberg regards the concerto form as the encounter of an individual soloist with the sound world of a composer. With living composers this approach often results in an unusual degree of collaboration, as the works gathered here bear witness to. Since 1999, Kullberg has enjoyed a close and unique partnership with Nørgård which has resulted in a large number of works.

"Groove Connection" features the highly acclaimed German alto saxophonist Jakob Manz together with a band of international groove-jazz-greats. An album full of infectious rhythms and melodies with great depth and stylistic mastery.

The Orpheus in England title of this release refers to the fact that both John Dowland and Henry Purcell were honored with the "Orpheus" designation after their deaths, nearly 100 years apart. The booklet for this Swedish release even comes with an anonymous poem telling the deceased Purcell to "Touch but thy Lyre, the Stones will come and dance themselves into a Tomb." The unusual idea of connecting the two composers, who shared a common tendency toward a mixture of melancholy and daring harmonic thinking, works well, and there are many lovely moments here.

12 years after his album entitled ‘Italian Virtuosi of the Chitarrone’ (BIS-1899), Jakob Lindberg returns to his magnificent theorbo, specially built for him by the luthier Michael Lowe, based on an instrument preserved in the Musée de la Musique in Paris. One of the most spectacular instruments of the early baroque owing to its length and great number of strings, the theorbo was originally designed to accompany the voice, but is also ideally suited to solo performance. For this disc, Lindberg has chosen pieces by Robert de Visée, one of the great French masters of the lute, theorbo and guitar repertoire and a favourite of Louis XIV. The recording features dances as well as character pieces, including a moving ‘Plainte’ in memory of his two deceased daughters. It also includes de Visée’s arrangements of compositions by Lully, Couperin and Purcell as well as his own version of Les Folies d’Espagne, a very popular chord progression that inspired so many composers of his time. Jakob Lindberg writes: ‘I can’t help but be seduced by the grace of the instrument’s lines, the resonance of its sonorities, and by the unmistakably French elegance of this remarkable composer.’

12 years after his album entitled ‘Italian Virtuosi of the Chitarrone’ (BIS-1899), Jakob Lindberg returns to his magnificent theorbo, specially built for him by the luthier Michael Lowe, based on an instrument preserved in the Musée de la Musique in Paris. One of the most spectacular instruments of the early baroque owing to its length and great number of strings, the theorbo was originally designed to accompany the voice, but is also ideally suited to solo performance. For this disc, Lindberg has chosen pieces by Robert de Visée, one of the great French masters of the lute, theorbo and guitar repertoire and a favourite of Louis XIV. The recording features dances as well as character pieces, including a moving ‘Plainte’ in memory of his two deceased daughters.

The music from the Baltic region in the latter half of the 17th century is characterized by fearless innovation and bubbling creativity. Here, a glimpse into the sacred solo-cantata and chamber music of this period is presented by bass-baritone Jakob Bloch Jespersen and Concerto Copenhagen under the direction of Lars Ulrik Mortensen.