Free/Transcripts ENDERN, Stahl, Pfeifer, Wolfgruber

• 1 2024 07:04
• 2 Lateef's lament 06:22
• 3 Dolphin stuck in a donut :( 05:35
• 4 Endling 03:00
• 5 Durations 07:32
• 6 Antilogue 01:46
• 7 Free/Transcript 04:47
• Total Runtime 36:06

Info for Free/Transcripts

For his fourteenth album as a leader, tenor saxophonist, composer, and producer Paul Heller has teamed up with the crème de la crème of European jazz: the outstanding pianist Nathalie Loriers – a longtime member of the renowned Brussels Jazz Orchestra, leader of her own bands, a first-class composer/arranger, and a sought-after guest for musicians such as Toots Thielemans, Philip Catherine, Lee Konitz, Paolo Fresu, and many others. Riccardo Del Fra on double bass is already a legend of the European jazz scene; he played for many years and on many albums in a trio with Chet Baker and in Bob Brookmeyer's European quartet. He toured and recorded with Art Farmer, Johnny Griffin, Toots Thielemans, John Taylor, Kenny Wheeler, to name just a few. For many years, Riccardo has led the jazz department at the Conservatoire National de Paris and has been honored with numerous awards for his achievements as a musician, composer, arranger, and educator.

Moritz Stahl, saxophone, pedalboard, sampler
Basti Pfeifer, piano, synthesizer
Sebastian Wolfgruber, drums, percussion, pipes

Moritz Stahl
The warm, seasoned tenor sound of Moritz Stahl is an unmistakable token of the young saxophonist. His remarkable musical talent was discovered early and cultivated: with the Landes-Jugendjazzorchester Bayern and subsequently with the Bundesjazzorchester, Stahl performed on tour in Asia, South America and Russia, before beginning his jazz studies under Florian Trübsbach at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. During this time he became influenced by such mentors as Seamus Blake, Karsten Gorzel, as well as Christian Elsässer and Gregor Hübner during his ensuing composition degree. While studying, Moritz Stahl was awarded the Kurt-Maas-Jazz Award and the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis.

The breadth of his musical influences – traditional jazz as well as more contemporary currents and progressive, experimental and electronic music – is reflected in the ensembles to which he contributes. Among them are his electronic alternative experimental jazz collective Ark Noir, the Philipp Schiepek Quartett, Fiona Grond Interspaces, NPG Quartet (w/ Jan Prax, Nils Kugelmann & Zhitong Xu) and the Hannah Weiss Group. He’s also a member of world touring phenomenon Jazzrausch Bigband.

The Moritz Stahl Quartet combines his extraordinary instrumental capabilities with his compositional prowess. With Sam Hylton, Nils Kugelmann and Sebastian Wolfgruber, Stahl has founded an group of individuals who perceptively meet each other at human, dynamic, and musical levels. Together, they create the framework for his empathetic playing: here is the cultivation of warm, sometimes tenderly lyrical phrases, then again a turnaround towards expressive virtuosity. Stahl’s tenor sound is without affections, yet full of passion. His music is rousing in a very natural way, always in his own distinctive style.

Sebastian Pfeifer
(born 1999 in Oldenburg) became interested in music at the age of 5. First he had classical piano lessons, later he added cello and drums. His piano teacher kicked him out of lessons at the age of 12 because he didn't practice enough and was increasingly losing interest in classically notated music. From that point on he began to take an interest in electronic music. He quickly developed the desire to produce his own tracks. He started writing his own songs with FL Studio. He soon reached his musical limits and needed new input, so he started improvising on the piano. At the age of 16 he fell in love with jazz music and began to learn rhythm, harmony and melody autodidactically. At 17 he took his first lessons with Klaus Ignatzek, who pushed him further and advised him to study. Finally he began studying jazz piano in Munich with Christian Elsässer and Tizian Jost. In 2021 he traveled to Mongolia for a semester, which was made possible by a scholarship. He also received the DAAD scholarship, musikfonds and the pop production scholarship from the city of Munich. In addition to jazz, he also continued to produce his electronic music, which increasingly intertwined with the new influences. This is how his alias "Beifer" was created, with which he releases electronic music with jazz influences. With this project he has already won 2nd prize in the "do your own thing" competition at the Domicil in Dortmund. In 2023, after a few singles, he released his debut album "constant.transition" on the label "tunnel.visions", which received a good response in both the jazz scene and the club scene. This album features the singer ENJI and the saxophonists Moritz Stahl and Wanja Slavin. Towards the end of his studies, Sebastian Pfeifer concentrated on new, avant-garde, experimental music. In April 2024, he released his work “ERDEN” under his real name, which he labels as experimental, electronic. Christian Lillinger made a contribution to this. With this work, which also includes AI-generated instruments, he won 3rd place at the Jazz-KI Award, which included a performance at ELBJAZZ 2024. ERDEN was followed up by 2 singles, which productions are based on random effect-chains.

Sebastian Wolfgruber
born in 1992 in Rosenheim, studied jazz drums at the Munich University of Music and was able to make a name for himself in the local jazz scene while still studying.

His main projects currently include the bands LBT and Fazer. He also plays regularly with Embryo, the Nils Kugelmann Trio and Duo, and POPP.

With LBT he won the BMW Jazz Award 2018 and the Burghauser Young Jazz Prize 2019. He won the New German Jazz Prize in 2018 with the Vincent Eberle Quintet. His concert tours have already taken him through Europe, Canada, and the Middle East.

This album contains no booklet.