Piano became saxophone
Two jazz musicians with different styles present new albums: While Nicole Johänntgen pays homage to stripped-down grooves from New Orleans on "Henry", the Sarah Chaksad Orchestra is drawn to lush sounds and exploring contrasts with "Windmond".
Nicole Johänntgen, who grew up in Fischbach in Saarland, comes from a strong musical background: her father, an all-round musician and sometimes on the road playing Dixieland jazz, loved to wake the family up with his trombone. As a child, Nicole Johänntgen first tried her hand at the piano, but tired of practicing, she turned to the saxophone at the age of thirteen. It was love at first try. The teenager was particularly taken with the free and groove-oriented playing possibilities. She began to emulate funk saxophonists such as Maceo Parker and Candy Dulfer, later studied at the State University of Music in Mannheim and moved to Zurich in 2005. Six years earlier, she had already recorded her first album - together with her brother Stefan - under the band name Nicole Jo. Since then, Johänntgen has released numerous other albums, including a collaboration with jazz musicians such as Ellen Pettersson and Izabella Effenberg under the title Sisters in Jazz.
For her latest project, Johänntgen traveled to New Orleans, where she recorded seven pieces in the studio that she had composed during a six-month stay in New York. She tracked down her fellow musicians, all from New Orleans, through mutual acquaintances. The result of this collaboration is Henrya tribute to the 35-year-old's family. Tuba, trombone, drums and saxophone take up the traditions of the music city on the Mississippi, but do not insist on them and show a great desire to improvise. The recordings are said to have been completed in just five hours. And coincidence or not: the tracks sound spontaneous, unadorned and have a fine groove. Nola - as the inhabitants of New Orleans call their city - comes up with a relaxed conversation between trombone and saxophone that is sometimes teasing, sometimes heated. The following Slowly on the other hand, initially emerges as contemplative and emphatically slow-moving, only to soon seek new beginnings - and find fulfillment in intense expressivity. A work that not only convinces with its musicality and its mix of shimmering, rumbling and even gurgling moments, but also knows how to charm.
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Nicole Johänntgen: Henry. www.nicolejohaenntgen.com
Sarah Chaksad and her orchestra. Photo: Fabian von Unwerth Like Johänntgen, Sarah Chaksad (*1983) also found her way to music. She also began with the piano and then switched to the saxophone at the age of nine. She also discovered her passion for composing while studying music at secondary school in Wohlen. After studying at the Bern University of Teacher Education, she enrolled at the Basel University of Music. "During my saxophone studies, I began to focus intensively on arranging and composing," the artist writes on her website. This explains why she studied big band arranging with Lars Lindvall and composition with Guillermo Klein. In 2012, she founded the 15-piece Sarah Chaksad Orchestra, which is based on the tradition of big bands but focuses on contemporary sounds and stands for rich dynamics and individual expression. The CD cover with a painted night sky and song titles such as Waterfall or the title track Wind moon suggest something esoteric, but nothing of the sort. The first piece, Halobegins symphonic and sublime, but quickly changes its colors and soon tends towards Latin rhythms and knows how to come up with scat interjections by Julien Fahrer.
Band leader Sarah Chaksad, who also heads the pop-soul formation Neighborship, prefers a dense sound in which the wind instruments, from saxophone to flugelhorn, take the lead. While Today We Got A New Angel is dark and pensive, behaves Look Back And Laugh moody and playful. The Sarah Chaksad Orchestra succeeds in creating contrasts time and again and never loses sight of the nuances. It swings, it's balladic, it bangs - and is consistently captivating.
Sarah Chaksad Orchestra: Windmond. Neuklang Records NCD4158. www.sarahchaksad.com
