KontraSax & Friends II | CD-Release Konzert: Serpents & Stones

Georg Ruby - Piano Florian Stadler - Akkordeon Christina Fuchs - Sopransaxophon, Klarinette, Bassklarinette Romy Herzberg - Bass

(english: see below)

.

Serpents & Stones ist mittlerweile die siebte KontraSax-Produktion beim Kölner Label JazzHausMusik und gleichzeitig das Dokument zum 35-jährigen Bühnenjubiläum des Duos. Diese Veröffentlichung ist das Ergebnis ihrer aktuellen musikalischen Bestandsaufnahme in den Jubiläumskonzerten, die dieser Aufnahme zugrunde liegen. Im Kölner O-Ton entstanden die Aufnahmen für Serpents & Stones. Dort folgten sie dem Plan, die KontraSax-Musik im Laboratorium der freien Improvisation mit Strukturen anderer Spieler und Genres live reagieren zu lassen. Die Intensität dieser musikalisch-chemischen Reaktion gehört in ihrem außergewöhnlichen Farbenreichtum mit zum Bemerkenswertesten, was die Klangwelt der Improvisierten Musik derzeit zu bieten hat.

https://www.kontrasax.de/ https://christinafuchs.de/ https://georgruby.de/ Klingt so: https://youtu.be/HXTiTQEygxo?list=RDHXTiTQEygxo

Georg Ruby - piano Florian Stadler - accordion Christina Fuchs - soprano saxophone, clarinett, bass clarinet Romy Herzberg - bass

.

Serpents & Stones is now the seventh KontraSax production on the Cologne-based label JazzHausMusik and also marks the duo’s 35th anniversary on stage. This release is the result of their current musical exploration during the anniversary concerts on which this recording is based. The recordings for *Serpents & Stones* were made at Cologne’s O-Ton. There, they followed a plan to let KontraSax’s music react live - in the laboratory of free improvisation - with structures from other musicians and genres. The intensity of this musical-chemical reaction, with its extraordinary richness of color, is among the most remarkable things the world of improvised music currently has to offer.

Further information

Venue:

LOFT

The LOFT in Cologne's Ehrenfeld district is exactly what its name suggests: a spacious loft on the top floor of a former perfume factory. Since 1989 it has been home to the city's musical avant-garde as well as a scene hub and a jazz laboratory for students.

Over those decades it has grown into a respected stage for improvised music, contemporary music, and jazz, with a reputation reaching well beyond Germany. Most of the Cologne jazz musicians who have made their mark nationally and internationally in the past thirty years took their first career steps here, among them Nils Wogram, Hayden Chisholm, Angelika Niescier, Frank Gratkowski, Robert Landfermann, Pablo Held, and Sebastian Sternal.

The Cologne Triennale, WDR, and Deutschlandfunk stage concerts and recordings at the LOFT, and the venue has been invited to the Moers Festival five times. Its own label, 2ndFloor, releases selected recordings, and more than 1,000 live and studio productions made in the LOFT studio have appeared on other labels. Supported by the association 2ndFloor e. V. and the collective jungesloft, it presents over 200 events a year.

Top-tier instruments – including a Steinway D grand, one of the finest concert pianos in any German jazz club – a professional recording studio with award-winning engineers, and the room's distinctive atmosphere have drawn many prominent guests, from Lee Konitz, Steve Lacy, and Peter Brötzmann to Kurt Rosenwinkel, Marilyn Crispell, and Jim Black. Still, the programming focus remains on supporting Cologne's own musicians.

Since 2009 the LOFT has received the NRW venue programming award every year, an honor that specifically recognizes work with emerging regional artists. In 2016 the British Guardian named it one of the ten best jazz clubs in Europe, and at the German Jazz Prize it was voted "Club/Venue of the Year" in 2021 and again in 2023 — a category decided not by the expert jury but directly by the more than 1,300 members of the German Jazz Union.

more info

More dates at LOFT: