Every year again - Christmas in Jazzrausch
The Jazzrausch Bigband has become known for its techno jazz programs, with which it has virtually invented a new genre. But every year since its founding eight years ago, the troupe goes on tour at the end of the year with a Christmas program. "Like most recently with the 'Emergenz' album, our regular projects are about exploring themes and reinventing ourselves that way," says band founder and leader Roman Sladek. "Our Christmas thing is really just exclusively about having fun. Moreover, it was even our first program ever, which we are still lovingly developing. Because we're dying to devote one month a year entirely to the big band tradition."
Every year again - Christmas in Jazzrausch The Jazzrausch Bigband has become known for its techno jazz programs, with which it has virtually invented a new genre. But every year since its founding eight years ago, the troupe goes on tour at the end of the year with a Christmas program. "Like most recently with the 'Emergenz' album, our regular projects are about exploring themes and reinventing ourselves that way," says band founder and leader Roman Sladek. "Our Christmas thing is really just exclusively about having fun. Moreover, it was even our first program ever, which we are still lovingly developing. Because we're dying to devote one month a year entirely to the big band tradition."
Consequently, 2019 saw the release of ACT's debut - four releases have already been added in the meantime - not only "Dancing Wittgenstein", but also the Christmas program "Still! Still! Still!" Because the band has successively expanded and renewed the repertoire, and after the Corona break a major Christmas tour from the Laeiszhalle Hamburg to the Robert Schumann Hall in Düsseldorf and the Isarphilharmonie Munich to the Berlin Cathedral loomed, "it was time to record a new album for our heart's theme," as Sladek finds. Voilà, here comes "Alle Jahre wieder!".
Of course, the Jazzrausch Bigband would not be so innovative and successful if they were content with some quickly concocted Christmas album. For them, it has to be surprisingly different and something with "oomph". Which already began with the preparation: Back in the spring, Sladek commissioned the band's chief composer and arranger Leonhard Kuhn to put together 50 minutes of completely new pieces. Rehearsals and recording were firmly scheduled between the numerous tour dates in the summer. Conceptually, too, they were not satisfied with what they had achieved. Was already "Still! Still! Still!" was almost a compendium of big band styles superimposed on popular Christmas pieces, the spectrum on "Alle Jahre wieder!" is once again significantly expanded. Although it is formally even more concentrated Unlike all other albums of the Jazzrausch Bigband, this is for the first time a purely instrumental one; and then Kuhn has gathered ten completely jazz-unsuspicious, almost staid classical Christmas songs from "Tochter Zion, freue dich" to "Adeste fideles" or "Ihr Kinderlein, kommet" to the title piece and completely re-dressed them with his orchestral garments: Sometimes the typical Glenn Miller swing smiles at you, sometimes Artie Shaw's incomparable big band elegance. The Bavarian "Es wird scho glei dumpa" comes to you in the Tijuana brass sound of legendary trumpeter and orchestra leader Herb Alpert, "In dulci jubilo" becomes a Countasie high-pressure brass machine. "Maria durch ein' Dornwald ging" gets the touch of the Mel Lewis/Thad Jones Orchestra after a Henry Mancini-like intro, "Ich steh' an deiner Krippe hier" becomes the relaxed counterpart of various swing grandmasters.
"We had a fetz'ngaudi," reports Sladek. This can be heard on the album, which is of course again masterfully played, along with many a wink. Too much contemplation is blown away and listeners are swept away into a Christmas jazz frenzy. At the same time, "Alle Jahre wieder!" is a Christmas tribute to the greats of big band history. "It's almost corny when you realize, with recordings like this sandwiched between all kinds of performances, that you're part of something that might one day become an anecdote in jazz history. We are a big band that plays a lot of stuff that you only know from the past. That's something special." And it's about even more: "This music just has an incredible power and joie de vivre. It doesn't have to be played in a suit. We want to present it in a fairer, more modern, humorous and attractive way. In such a way that everyone can connect to it in their own life reality. In a Christmas program, everyone can meet on a common denominator. And then we go off together." So once again the Jazzrausch Bigband succeeds in what only a few in the jazz field manage to do, despite all the genre expansions: Bringing young and old together, tradition and revolution, familiar and new. Every year again.
"This band simply does everything right" wrote the Hamburger Abendblatt recently about the performance of the jazz-techno-big band phenomenon 'Jazzrausch Bigband' in the sold-out Elbphilharmonie
Another of many highlights of an absolutely remarkable success story. The Jazzrausch Bigband unites party people, concert audiences, club, festival, philharmonic, E & U. Meanwhile also internationally. For the Christmas concerts and albums of the very programmatically acting band, laptop, synthesizer and effect devices are left out. Here the young musicians celebrate a classic big band sound, swinging, jazzy and warm. But of course: The Jazzrausch Bigband wouldn't be themselves if it weren't audible that at and around Christmas the cookies burn, the tree is crooked and generally the wish for perfect happiness always brings with it the potential for complete madness. Even if everyone loves each other again in the end.
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