We live in interesting times but shock! What’s this?
A very compelling Sino-German east-meets-west jazz fusion concept.
So it’s a sheng, the ancient Chinese mouth-blown polyphonic free reed instrument consisting of vertical pipes made of bamboo, in a setting with trumpet and piano.
Mindful, slow, halting, occasionally avant-garde sounding but completely easy to digest and a world away from being flakily New Agey or pan pipe laden, trumpeter Ingolf Burkhardt emerges best of all on ‘Inner Peace.’
Well known to international jazz fans German pianist Florian Weber studied at Berklee and worked with John Taylor, Joanne Brackeen, and Lee Konitz winning the German Record Critics Prize with Minsarah.
On ECM Weber has recorded such albums as Alba (with Markus Stockhausen) and Lucent Waters.
Freely improvised what’s here was distilled from some 90 tracks during a recording session.
Weber’s fellow countryman Burkhardt hails from Baden-Württemberg and studied at the Cologne Music Conservatory under Manfred Schoof. Later he himself taught at the Hamburg Conservatory and is a long time member of the NDR Big Band.
Wu Wei, born in 1970 in Gaoyou, China, has performed with the Berlin Philharmonic under Kent Nagano and the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Gustavo Dudamel and worked with the NDR Big Band among other ensembles. An amazing instrumentalist he has performed at the Proms and the Edinburgh International Festival. Wei also founded a classical trio with violist Martin Stegner and bassist Matthew McDonald of the Berlin Philharmonic.
