If you from Leo Betzl Trioshort LBT talking, one comes at the mention of the Jazz rush big band bad over. After all, all three band members, along with pianist Leo Betzl, bassist Maximilian Hirning and drummer Sebastian Wolfgruber, were regular members of Roman Sladek’s troupe for a long time (and still play with her from time to time). And just as the Jazzrausch Bigband found their recipe for success in large-scale access to technoid sounds, LBT quickly became very successful with the perhaps even bolder adaptation of techno music by a classical acoustic piano jazz trio. What also unites the two ensembles is that the new path, not to say the newly invented style, is based on profound knowledge of the respective tradition, i.e. the classic big band repertoire as well as the trio achievements of modern jazz.
However, the house composer Leonhard Kuhn wrote and writes the pieces at the Jazzrausch Bigband, while the old raver and techno fan Maximilian Hirning is responsible for them at the LBT. Which brings us to the Janus face of the band. In addition to techno-jazz, the three have never forgotten their love for modern jazz and nurtured it with pieces by Betzl. Their penultimate double album “Stereo” presented both facets on one disc each. On the new album “Abstract” In a way, the two now flow into each other.
Recorded live in front of an audience in BR Studio 2 in June 2022, “Abstract” consists exclusively of new and innovative material, without overturning the unmistakable band sound that has been developed over the past ten years. It is true that Wolfgruber no longer plays the frenzied, continuous and always the same – four to the floor – four quarters with a click in his ear, Betzl, who originally came from classical music, increasingly draws his romantic piano melody lines, and Hirning’s bass often slips from the percussion instrument into the Jazz Woofer Roll
But the ten intertwined pieces have a much stronger pulse than is usual in jazz. Even slow, sound-focused ones like “Narrative” come across as feverish and explosive. Smashing passages in the lowest register (“Alles was Odem hat”) alternate with pure sound lyricism, serial clusters and processed instrument sounds, creating more tension and power than pure techno could ever do. And that’s, as a title like “It’s just money” suggests, much more enjoyable and fun.
The album will be released on January 20th. The release concert scheduled for the same day in Unterfahrt has been sold out for a long time, but the opportunity is coming again, for example in April in Import/Export.
LBT: “Abstract”, Enja 2023