Project: Es war einmal

Es war einmal

 
Project “Es war einmal”

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Es war einmal 

 

In the beginning was one single piece, “Strahlenspur” (trace of a beam), recorded in 1983 with Rainer Brüninghaus at the piano and Fredy Studer on drums (Continuum, ECM 1266). There was a young man who played the trumpet in a way the world had never heard before, with a clear tone of unearthly beauty and an understanding of music that effortlessly transcended the formal borders of the avant-garde, contemporary sound-production and improvisation. Markus Stockhausen told me later that mutual inspiration had actually been a “lucky accident”. In any case the direction was pointed out, ever forwards and with careful steadiness upwards.

Over two decades later, Markus Stockhausen has once again arrived at a point of promising freedom. He found a trio, same instrumentation as back then, which carries him, lends him wings. And he has reached a degree of reflection, a musical maturity in which intuition and control, personality and perfection connect at the same level. The result is a musical balance in which one senses the struggles which led up to it and at the same time a strength that seems to come out of the tones themselves. It's still all about the aesthetic of sound, effect, the connection between imagination and expression, and on another level about the disappearance of the compositional without the loss of the structural. About affinity, which generates art. About the organic in the artificial.

Given this, the music of the trio Stockhausen, Comisso and Thomé has something heraclitic. In animated conversations it narrates, rambles, reasons and debates, while at the same time following an even stream of impressions that gently but assuredly carry the artists further. There are moments of lingering, of quiet, introversion as well as roguishness, yes, even sometimes a “simpleness” that heightens the contrast to the other compact elements. But above all it is the moment of “letting go” within the basis of a common framework which is stronger than ever. And so we have come full circle. What began as a “lucky accident” with “Strahlenspur” has in the meantime grown to a tonal language for which can hardly be found its equal in the circles of improvisation, of comprovisation.

Ralf Dombrowski (Translation: Camilla Hoitenga)

More information about this CD (mp3)

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Examples from our press review:

	Que voilà un beau disque ! – la beauté du timbre et la fluidité de l’articulation chez... www.citizenjazz.com
	Markus Stockhausen [...] lässt Klassik, Neue Musik und Jazz zur Synthese werden – Sein weiches Flügelhorn- und spitzes Trompetenspiel tastet... Rhein Zeitung

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