Joachim Meyerhof

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.

Violinist and composer Joseph Joachim was a central figure of Romanticism, famous as a personal friend of Johannes Brahms and as an arbiter of musical taste who was professionally associated with many of the 19th century's greatest musicians. Daniel Hope's The Romantic Violinist: A Celebration of Joseph Joachim paints an appealing portrait through selections of Joachim's own music, as well as short pieces by Brahms, Clara Schumann, Antonin Dvorák, Franz Schubert, and the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Max Bruch.

This album features works by composers for whom the conception and creation of music was intimately bound up with a religious attitude towards the world. Before the birth of aesthetics in the 18th century, the symbolic or “external” meanings of music resided in the music itself; neither its expressiveness nor its purpose as an integral part of social and religious rituals were separated from a larger context of moral and spiritual considerations. In this sense, although their tonal languages and forms differ greatly, later composers such as Liszt, Franck and Messiaen followed the spirit of Bach, reflecting a musical philosophy in which musical means and theological ends were deeply intertwined, if not one and the same.

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.

Israel in Babylon is a pasticcio compiled by Edward Toms in 1764, with pre-existing instrumental works by Handel transformed into arias. The performance is fantastic, with thrilling choral work from the Kantorei Saarlouis, expert solo singing Julia Gooding, Jonathan Peter Kenney and Joseph Cornwell, and spirited playing from the Ensemble UnaVolta under Joachim Fontaine.

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"…

At 73, it's tempting to call Roedelius the 'grand old man of ambient' or some such nonsense. To be sure, as a member of both Cluster and Harmonia his keyboard skills have been central in shaping the more 'new age' (for want of a better term) end of krautrock's sonic dna. Yet, despite his age Inlandish, finds Roedelius still supremely able to fire off beguilingly simple melodic piano lines, seemingly at will. His work on the album was completed in days, leaving electronica artist Tim Story to tinker and tweak them for several months afterwards. The results are stunning. In the same way that HJR's work with Eno remains strangely timeless, this album exists in a parallel universe where it's still possible to spend an hour in quiet contemplation. To call it 'ambient' is to do it a disservice. For these are tunes that wiggle and shimmer into the ears, gently refusing to melt into background noise.