Joachim

The title "Bold Music" says everything and nothing, this is a challenging and ambitious avant-jazz date that features Joachim Kühn tackling everything from piano to alto sax to antelope horn. It's nevertheless most audacious for tempering its outré leanings with soulful, melodic grooves and insistent rhythms that make the music more accessible and more idiosyncratic. Working in collaboration with bassist/cellist Jean-François Jenny-Clark, drummer Stu Martin and percussionist Jacques Thollot, Kühn fuses improvisational skronk and sound-library smoothness to make a record that occupies both extremes of the MPS label sound at the same time. Somehow, Bold Music is both free and easy, and that's a rare feat indeed.

Pianist and composer from Brussels, Joachim Caffonnette, introduces his second album as a band leader with VERS L’AZUR NOIR.

Pianist Joachim Kühn is one of the few global German jazz stars. With his playing style, which transcends all categories, he has made his mark as a world-class musician, and on contemporary jazz, blazing entirely new trails. The musical cosmopolitan Kühn sees himself in the tradition of jazz, and also in a close relationship with European concert music. But despite all this he is committed to a contemporary sound. He reveals vehemence and sensitivity, masterly craftsmanship and imagination, an unmistakable touch and an unerring sense of dynamics. In the interplay with musical partners of many years' standing, in ever new and often unusually challenging constellations or on his own and his solo concerts, Joachim Kühn makes music an event.

German avant-garde jazz pianist Joachim Kühn relocated to California in the mid-1970s and teamed up with drummer Alphonse Mouzon on this 1977 release of atmospheric West Coast fusion. The two headliners are joined by an international cast of supporting musicians including bassist John Lee, Japanese trumpeter Terumasa Hino, Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos and British guitarist Philip Catherine.

Katharina Uhde, Assistant Professor of Music at Valparaiso University, is an internationally acclaimed violinist and musicologist. She is the author of The Music of Joseph Joachim (Boydell & Brewer, 2018). She holds a DMA degree from the University of Michigan and a PhD in Musicology from Duke University. As a soloist, quartet and piano trio member she has won first prizes in international competitions in Czech Republic and Germany.

With delicate piano themes and atmospheric electronic sounds, Hans-Joachim Roedelius & Arnold Kasar develop a unique chemistry. The fact that they are part of different generations of musicians is one of the reasons for the uniqueness and the magic of their encounter.

Joachim Kühn is joined by Daniel Humair, one of Europe’s most celebrated drummers, along with bassist/cellist Peter Warren, whose play has graced the albums of such diverse greats as Clarla Bley and John Scofield. Other Way Out is a free dialogue between piano and soprano, and Unison Union brings the quartet together in a display of intuitive inspiration. 16 pieces of creative brilliance.

On „Voodoo Sense“ German piano legend Joachim Kühn adds saxophone colossus Archie Shepp to his 'Wüstenjazz' trio. In the center of the album the Coltrane classic 'Kulu Se Mama' is put to the test.

Saxophone trio records present a lot of challenges for a bass player. Your sound, intonation, time feel, and command of harmony are all perfectly exposed. However, in Joachim’s case, these challenges are handled with ease and instead showcase how much he excels in those areas. The depth of his sound is the first thing that hits you. The sonic space that might otherwise be occupied by a piano is compensated for by the rich quality and deep fundamental tone of each bass note. These qualities keep you engaged throughout the entire record despite the sparse orchestration.

“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.