program

7th January 2022


Matthew Halpin by artist

Matthew Halpin – Frown Town

Matthew Halpin comes from Dublin, Ireland, studied at Berklee, USA, and has been living in Cologne for several years. In Germany, the “fearlessly inventive improviser” has quickly made a name for himself as a leader and sideman of numerous bands and large ensembles. After the successful release of his debut album “Agreements”, Matthew Halpin continues his journey as a composer and bandleader, this time with a new band of longtime friends and colleagues. The musical characters in this band are a colorful mix, and each of them has the flexibility to change direction and enter new territories when the need arises.

Don’t let the title “Frown Town” mislead you! (Fictional place where nobody is happy and nothing is pleasant) – When you listen to this band, you will be much more likely to smile and nod along with the powerful grooves and melodies.

Matthew Halpin – sax
Hanno Busch – guit
Simon Jermyn – b
Roberto Giaquinto – dr

Leif Berger by Patrick Essex

Leif Berger „Die Lärmtrompeten des Nichts“

Metaphor: When I look into the forest, there are quite a lot of interlocking, shifting layers, nets, depth gradations, partly very near, partly very far away, they shift depending on focus and position. / Recurring dream: Overwhelming, rapidly enlarging and potentiating masses/numbers, which make me disbelieve and faint. / Aphorism by Kafka: A staircase step not deeply hollowed out by steps is, seen from itself, only something drearily put together wooden. “Worldbuilding”: the process of developing an imaginary world with coherent qualities. / Magical staging: dioramas in natural history museums. / Symbol of the serenely advancing, ego-less spirit: clouds. / Mystery: the sudden sighting of a water palisade wall. / Further aphorism: The human history is the second between two steps of a wanderer.

Philipp Gropper – sax
Elisabeth Coudoux – vc
Elias Stemeseder – synth
Leif Berger – dr 

NAU Trio by artist

NAU Trio by artist

NAU Trio

The three Cologne based musicians – all excellent instrumentalists – promise a concert with rhythmic jazz and captivating melodies. The South American musical influences and ideas of Henrique Gomide and André de Cayres from Brazil, together with the African playing style of Dutchman Antoine Duijkers, form the basis for compositions and improvisations. In 2021, the trio presented its debut album “In the Ocean” at Jazzahead! as part of the German Jazz Expo. “…A really successful album with fresh young jazz full of South American and African rhythms. Catchy music that is fun to listen to and yet so complex that there is much to discover. In addition, the southern rhythms also bring a touch of lightness and summer to our Corona-plagued winter landscape, something we can all make good use of.” (U. Bräutigam)

Henrique Gomide – pno
André de Cayres – b
Antoine Duijkers – African dr

Janning Trumann 4 by Patrick Essex

Janning Trumann 4 by Patrick Essex

Janning Trumann 4

When it comes to distinctive German trombonists, Albert Mangelsdorff and Nils Wogram are usually mentioned as important fixtures in the tradition line of musical personalities who have also become internationally known. In recent years, an extraordinary talent of the next generation has approached to them: Janning Trumann. He came to Cologne from northern Germany, made a stopover in New York and has since become a driving force of the young jazz scene in NRW, both musically and in terms of cultural politics. With his internationally touring quartet, Janning Trumann plays a poetically gripping as well as powerfully flowing jazz: stimulatingly complex and at the same time endowed with magnetic melodies, expressive and yet always hitting clear, musical statements. He wonderfully savors the sounds and the vocal quality of his instrument and at the same time embeds them – in collaborative arrangement with his band – in stringent compositions and their improvisational freedom. In this way an enormous, deeply effective energy unfolds.

Janning Trumann – trbn
Lucas Leidinger – pno/synth
Florian Herzog – b
Thomas Sauerborn – dr

Roger Kintopf by Florian Fries

Roger Kintopf by Florian Fries

Roger Kintopf STRUCTUCTURE

Four individuals who, when they first met, immediately discovered their converging ideas of a musical playing attitude. Their music is about energy, about creating a collective expression of creativity. The concentrated interplay moves between fast impulses and rest phases, which are controlled and processed equally by all four musicians. In Roger Kintopf’s compositions – with striking structures, rhythms and harmonies – the possibilities of interactive interplay within the quartet without a harmony instrument are explored in depth. As a strongly interlocked unit, “Structucture” develops a playing attitude that always focuses on the overall sound of the band and the flexibility of each individual musician within a uniformly moving mesh – “very modern, very sophisticated, very demanding, very creative”.

Asger Nissen – as, acl
Victor Fox – ts, bcl
Roger Kintopf – b
Felix Ambach – dr

Giw & Kilonzo SUM

Giw & Kilonzo by Nathan Ishar

Giw & Kilonzo by Nathan Ishar

Spiritual, easy. In the booming feedback hides lost communication of non-existent primitive cultures. Sweat and finger signs. Mirrors and angles that reveal meaning if you take a look at them. Giw and Kilonzo’s constantly shifting performance SUM lets improvisation act as a source of meaning, it’s about blurring roles and states, full of beat and close-ups. “Krump und Stille”, an urban-free-improvisation-ritual. Giw & Kilonzo have already played in the most diverse contexts, at techno parties and dance festivals as well as in art galleries or on concert stages. With “Fluid States of Being”, the duo had their first long-term collaboration since 2017, and now the new phase SUM has grown.

Pablo Giw – performance, trpt
Kelvin Kilonzo – performance, dance

Akintaya / Philipp / Hauptmann / Helm

Lukas Akintaya by Odelia Toder

Lukas Akintaya by Odelia Toder

Lukas Akintaya is a Berlin-based drummer and composer who appears in various projects as both (co-)leader and sideman. Most recently, he presented his debut album as a bandleader with HUES (Skirl Records), which was created during his stay in New York. Since 2020 he is back in Germany and brings together a group of Cologne musicians* with whom he always wanted to play for Winterjazz 22. “I think this combination of voices will have a lot to say and I’m really looking forward to it!” Expect a celebration of the moment with electronic touches, sonic eruptions and great openness.

Lukas Akintaya – dr
Theresia Philipp – as
Felix Hauptmann – pno/synth
David Helm – guit/efx

Sonae

Sonae by Katja Ruge

Sonae by Katja Ruge

Sonae is a producer, live performer and DJ of experimental electronic music; she is also part of the label collective Monika Werkstatt. She plays live solo shows as well as with Monika Werkstatt at international festivals and clubs. Numerous remix commissions, since 2012 release of various albums, most recently “Summer” (laaps/2021).

“Artistic work means inner dialogue, outer dialogue very often too. Exchange is a good choice: talk to people, get feedback, talk to the audience, have a stimulating conversation. But how do you get in touch with an artist? How do you reach the levels of meaningful contact? – Listen to the artist, listen closely, discover a language beyond words: We actually make music.”

Sonae – live electr

LARIZA

LARIZA by artist

LARIZA by artist

The Cologne-based quintet around singer and composer Lena-Larissa Senge combines jazz and pop as well as electronic and experimental sounds to create a captivating new entity. With dedication, openness and precision, LARIZA makes use of diverse elements of popular, electronic and global music, draws from the freedom of improvisation and embeds these influences in unconventional compositional structures. In continuous collaboration with her bandmates, Lena-Larissa Senge creates songs that reflect the world that surrounds us and also illuminate the non-obvious. The songs make their own way under the skin, formed from organic grooves, differentiated sounds and multi-faceted vocals. The band has received two Jazz Newcomer awards and will release their new album “Weave” (Jazz Thing Next Generation/Double Moon Records) in spring 2022.

Lena-Larissa Senge – voc, synth
Lorenz Schönle – sax, EWI, voc
Raissa Mehner – guit, electr, voc
Duy Luong – b, electr
Lukas Schwegmann – dr, electr

RE: CALAMARI

Re:Calamari by Beat Halberschmidt

Re:Calamari by Beat Halberschmidt

Modern Creative Jazz from Cologne and Berlin: Four exceptional musicians, one pulsating unit – that’s what the band “RE: CALAMARI” stands for. The quartet around the terrific Cologne bassist Oliver Lutz promises “a little more of everything”. That means concretely: more joy of playing, more energy, more passion. The band includes Pablo Held, one of Europe’s most successful jazz pianists – he inspires as a sideman with a never-ending spiral of new thoughts and motifs. Joined by the award-winning saxophone virtuoso Wanja Slavin and Andi Haberl, who appears as the drummer of “The Notwist”, among others, and enriches the music with his diverse and furious drumming. Together these four outstanding musicians release an incomparable power, according to the motto: “Now is the time to give everything. The source can be emptied, because there is always something to come”. In September 2020, their first album “RE: CALAMARI” was released by the Cologne-based label KLAENGrecords; their second album will be released in 2022.

Wanja Slavin – sax, keys
Pablo Held – keys
Oliver Lutz – b
Andi Haberl – dr

 8. JANUAR 2022


TAU 5 by Constantin Flux

TAU 5 by Constantin Flux

TAU5

The quintet TAU5 provides the soundtrack for the par force ride between the extremes. It is a rapid interplay and a constant morphing process between the components of analog instruments and digital editing suite, when Ludwig Wandinger, as a free improvising DJ, works on the parts and phrases of his fellow musicians with the means and possibilities of the digital construction kit, in order to present them to them again afterwards for new treatment. The result is music that is truly “without boundaries,” in which the interfaces between jazz, improvisation, hip-hop, techno, and broken beats nonchalantly blur.

Philipp Gropper – sax
Philip Zoubek – synth
Moritz Baumgärtner – dr
Ludwig Wandinger – electr
Felix Henkelhausen – b

Daniel Tamayo by artist

Daniel Tamayo by artist

Daniel Tamayo Quintett

The Colombian musician Daniel Tamayo lives in Cologne since 2015. Since then he has been active as a guitarist and composer in various projects in Europe, but also in New York and Medellín. He has worked for the BuJazzO and the Subway Jazz Orchestra, among others, and received various composition prizes. His quintet aims to create a special sound experience that takes listeners into a world of textures, mixing electronics with free improvisation and composed music. And a formation with piano as a second harmony instrument is a special challenge for guitarists and a sound color with a lot of potential. “The sound is allowed to oscillate in moods, is sometimes acoustic and technically sovereignly articulated, sometimes electronically infiltrated.” “A fresh, powerful jazz, twirling from free to melodic and poignant murmurs, always represented with excellence…”

Daniel Felipe Tamayo Gomez – guit, comp
Yaroslav Likhachev – ts
Moritz Preisler – pno
Conrad Noll – b
Simon Bräumer – dr

Bört by artist

Bört by artist

BÖRT

“Curious like a child, always on the lookout for the unexpected, the mysterious” – that’s how bassist Lukas Keller describes the stubborn nature of his quartet BÖRT. The four musicians from the dense Cologne scene are a prime example of what is currently possible in young European jazz. Playful handling of the existing, surprising ideas, a pinch of humor and self-evident virtuosity. The curiosity for the other, not heard brings the four to new shores. And drives them to never stand still musically: “In the area of tension between blind trust and mutual ruthlessness.”
The debut album “HANA” was released in 2021 by BERTHOLD Records.

Theresia Philipp – sax, cl
Jonathan Hofmeister – pno
Lukas Keller – b
Jan Philipp – dr

Resonators by Frank Schemmann

Resonators by Frank Schemmann

THE RESONATORS

Many may know Frank Gratkowski as an innovative spirit between free improvisation and contemporary music. The virtuoso has intensively researched the creation of new tones on saxophones, clarinets and flutes, created

extended playing techniques, worked with microtonal concepts and acoustic phenomena. But even the great intellectual and thought leader has ground beneath his feet. Gratkowski takes a decidedly earthy and rocking direction with the band The Resonators, and that’s not just because of the jarring chords and glistening lines of Sebastian Müller’s electric guitar. Massive basses and hypnotically swirling drums fuel solo escapades that sometimes develop shrill noise approaches and can ignite scorching fires. In between, the energetic-feverish quartet slows down; for moments they all give themselves melodically, alternating from conciliatory to atmospheric sounds, before the machine slowly starts up again…

Frank Gratkowski – sax, fl, cl
Sebastian Müller – guit
Reza Askari – b
Thomas Sauerborn – dr

Laura Totenhagen by Taya Chernyshova

Laura Totenhagen by Taya Chernyshova

Laura Totenhagen solo

The usual solo singing paths interest Laura Totenhagen just as little as double bottoms, safety nets or clichés. Thus she renounces everything concealing in her performance, which could keep her from an engaging directness: She wants to challenge herself and let herself fall at the same moment.

Totenhagen’s performance is a curious process. An invitation to listen.

Laura Totenhagen – voc 

Barbara Barth ALL OR NOTHING AT ALL

Barbara Barth by Juliane Guder

Barbara Barth by Juliane Guder

All or nothing. Courage, risk and dedication. Beautiful and shimmering, angular and edgy, daring and gentle.

With her program “All or Nothing at All” the charismatic jazz singer dares to bring her musical identity on stage without reservations. Beyond the usual role clichés, she searches for alternative ways of dealing with musical material with her trio of Sebastian Büscher and Veit Steinmann. In addition to original compositions, adaptations of jazz repertoire and improvisation form the core of the program. Generous contributions are also made to interests in other musical forms. Classical polyphony meets American folk songs, electronic moments contrast purely acoustic passages, and the boundaries between soloist and accompaniment are deliberately obscured.

Barbara Barth – voc
Sebastian Büscher – ts
Veit Steinmann – vc

Elisabeth Coudoux – Violoncello solo

Elisabeth Coudoux by Johan Coudoux

Elisabeth Coudoux by Johan Coudoux

For Elisabeth Coudoux, exploring the spectrum of sounds on the cello is an ever-expanding search for the inner voice. Piece by piece, learned norms are dismantled, layer by layer she arrives at an inner language that is not formed with the mouth, but in the interplay of ear, hands and intuition. She understands her instrument as an orchestral body of sound, whose weights are constantly shifting between individual expression and free collective energy. Many ideas for the solo emerged in intensive exchange in concerts with other passionate musicians and artists.

Elisabeth Coudoux – vc 

Heidi Bayer KORSH

Heidi Bayer by Patrick Essex

Heidi Bayer by Patrick Essex

What initially came across as a loose idea – to give the accordion a different musical space from its often folkloristic terrain – soon became reality for band leader, trumpeter and composer Heidi Bayer: in 2020 she found Norwegian accordionist Kalle Moberg for her new band. A musician who is able to play his accordion in

such a way that in places one no longer recognizes it as such, but instead suspects electronic arrangements, flutes, clarinets and at least one organ that is in great need of repair, was exactly what Heidi Bayer had in mind and even went far beyond. Then, in August 2021, the band recorded its first album (to be released by Tangible Music in April 2022). In addition to strong and catchy melodies and sophisticated detail, Bayer’s music also leaves room for free islands to make their way between and within the compositions, connecting together what belongs connected. Conceptually, there are individual motifs that run through many of her pieces like a delicate thread through a suite. Elements of film and video game music, contemporary jazz, hip-hop, punk rock and improvised music merge in her c

Heidi Bayer – trpt
Sven Decker – ts
Kalle Moberg – akk
Phil Donkin – b
Oli Steidle – dr

Lukoshko

Lukosho by Karl Degenhard

Lukosho by Karl Degenhard

Tamara Lukasheva is both a composer and a singer. She goes through the world full of curiosity and with alert senses. Music is her mother tongue – and her means of processing impressions, encounters and everyday life. And to create something new, which in turn touches other people; across borders and musical categories. Solo, in duo, with her quartet, in many collaborations and as a composer, she has won numerous prestigious awards in recent years and is on the road internationally. Her electro band Lukoshko deals with the theme ”cosmos” in its own way: together with Johannes Weber, Malte Viebahn and Jan Helten, Tamara Lukasheva undertakes interstellar excursions to cosmic shores of sound. The pieces are dedicated to Venus, Uranus, Neptune or Jupiter, and in the weightlessness of space new and old worlds are discovered.ompositions to create an exciting overall sound.

Tamara Lukasheva – voc, comp, keys
Johannes Weber – guit
Malte Viebahn – b
Jan Helten – dr

Luciel

Luciel by artist

After studies in Amsterdam, Helsinki and Ghana, the 4 musicians of Luciel met in Cologne. They quickly realized how effortlessly they found a common sound. The formation of the band was inevitable. Working together on their first album “…and that’s all I remember” brought Luciel even closer in countless hours of collective writing, arranging, producing and mixing. Meanwhile, the band has become a kind of musical home for them, where they share their passion for good, handmade pop music. For Winter Jazz 22 and even more sound, they are joined by guest Vitaliy Zolotov. Luciel‘s debut was released in 2019 on the Hamburg label Herzog Records and was promptly nominated for the German Record Critics Award, side by side with US greats like Solange Knowles and Chaka Khan. As a support act, Luciel has already played for artists such as Incognito, Snarky Puppy and Bilal.

David Rynkowski – voc, keys
Philipp Brämswig – guit, voc
Vitaliy Zolotov – guit
Florian Rynkowski – b, voc
Niklas Stade – dr

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