Latest CD on Nemu Records
TRANSITIONS
" ... the musicians are still opening up unheard-of horizons. This is an exceptional record, played by particularly inspired and committed musicians. Jazz in all its meaning, strength and relevance, as it can still be embodied, played, invented, brought to life... and heard today!" - Jean Buzelin, CultureJazz
With this brand new energetic transatlantic quintet Dell Ramond Kugel continue to expand their musical world between traditional and experimental jazz with great sensitivity and imagination. The repertoire consists of original compositions inspired by their great admiration for and reserach on the work of American saxophonist and composer Eric Dolphy. The quintet consits of masterful European and US musicians: Adventurous trumpeter Nate Wooley, unique saxophonist Ken Vandermark, and innovative Vibraphonist Christopher Dell, outstanding Christian Ramond on bass and contemporary jazz great Klaus Kugel on drums.
What happens when European musicians specialising in contemporary improvised music meet avant-garde musicians from the USA? When a trio of vibraphone, percussion and double bass expand agogically woven playing styles in real time in a highly virtuosic way with saxophone and trumpet, whose playing posture is determined by concretion? This experiment is dared by Wooley, Vandermark and the trio Dell Ramond Kugel - in a special constellation of instruments reminiscent of the leaner ensemble line-up of Eric Dolphy's "Out to lunch". Dolphy's first album for Blue Note was once praised by the German jazz critic Hans-Jürgen Schaal as a completely new sound concept, an "airy framework of colourful abstraction" and diverse rhythms; "half chamber music transparency, half free jazz laboratory".
In reference to Dolphy, both Wooley and Vandermark as well as Dell Ramond Kugel leave the comfort zones of their ancestral realms to advance to new dynamics and sound languages in this extremely exciting combination. This project is neither about traditionalism nor about fusion, but about the most differentiated elaborations, overlays of specific working methods and synergetic structural improvisations in relation to a special moment in music history. The extraordinary line-up wants nothing less than to lift into a contemporary format the unearthing of the innovative power and special dialectic of abstraction and concretion that produced Eric Dolphy's "Out to lunch" and to let something new emerge from it. The international, cross-cultural cast thus closes a gap that has formed between the highly differentiated improvisation scenes of the last fifty years. With this project, Dell Ramond Kugel with their American bandmates Wooley and Vandermark set out on a new adventure that defies musical and cultural boundaries.
What happens when European musicians specialising in contemporary improvised music meet avant-garde musicians from the USA? When a trio of vibraphone, percussion and double bass expand agogically woven playing styles in real time in a highly virtuosic way with saxophone and trumpet, whose playing posture is determined by concretion? This experiment is dared by Wooley, Vandermark and the trio Dell Ramond Kugel - in a special constellation of instruments reminiscent of the leaner ensemble line-up of Eric Dolphy's "Out to lunch". Dolphy's first album for Blue Note was once praised by the German jazz critic Hans-Jürgen Schaal as a completely new sound concept, an "airy framework of colourful abstraction" and diverse rhythms; "half chamber music transparency, half free jazz laboratory".
In reference to Dolphy, both Wooley and Vandermark as well as Dell Ramond Kugel leave the comfort zones of their ancestral realms to advance to new dynamics and sound languages in this extremely exciting combination. This project is neither about traditionalism nor about fusion, but about the most differentiated elaborations, overlays of specific working methods and synergetic structural improvisations in relation to a special moment in music history. The extraordinary line-up wants nothing less than to lift into a contemporary format the unearthing of the innovative power and special dialectic of abstraction and concretion that produced Eric Dolphy's "Out to lunch" and to let something new emerge from it. The international, cross-cultural cast thus closes a gap that has formed between the highly differentiated improvisation scenes of the last fifty years. With this project, Dell Ramond Kugel with their American bandmates Wooley and Vandermark set out on a new adventure that defies musical and cultural boundaries.
Past concerts and cd recording 2022
August-24, Berlin, Sowieso
August-25, Berlin, Sowieso
August-26, Bonn, Kreuzung an Sankt Helena
August-27, Cologne, Loft (cd recording)
Supported by Initiative Musik gGmbH with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media on the basis of a resolution passed by German Bundestag.
