Spatial confinement is part of the traditional image of the jazz cellar, like dim light and cigarette smoke. You searched in vain for the last two in Artesano on Thursday evening when the EBE-Jazz jam session took place there at a late hour. In the living room atmosphere of the small rooms with their nooks and crannies, nooks and crannies, the music and the audience became all the more intimate with each other. Salon music the way you want it, just in a style that is unusual for the genre. The fact that one or the other lacked the line of sight to the source of the music, and that some even had to turn their backs on jazz, did not detract from the listening pleasure. On the contrary: it gave the imagination a little more activity, and so did the ears.
For example, you never got the idea (unless you turned around) to ask yourself why Buren Ireedui came to the session with the Martin Zenker trio in a dirndl of all places. Or why the Mongolians have such a stunningly mature voice for their youth. But you listened, let their singing get under your skin and into your soul. In “Smile” and “Summertime” she served the audience two standards right from the start with so much depth and enthusiasm for improvisation that what was wanted could follow that evening: It was good.
In contrast to Michel Benita’s concert before, from which many had wandered over to Artesano, the first set here was a caressing experience in the comfort zone of chatting, eating and drinking, not least thanks to “Future”, as the singer calls herself, but it never came off a minor matter, but determined the color in which the appearance is imprinted in the memory. At the end of a long day, it was the timelessness of the pieces played – together with the symphony of scraps of conversation, the blades of glasses and the clatter of dishes – that made the audience feel “home”. A bit like at the bar of the old Grand Hotel, you were actually just waiting for an aged, white-jacketed waiter to shuffle around the corner with a silver platter in his hand with gimlet, gin fizz and cosmopolitan on it. You could even ignore the guest who would rather devote himself to a tabloid than the singer’s solo.
To call their three companions “standards” is easy for those familiar with the Grafingen scene, which is at the forefront of EBE jazz and especially when it comes to sessions. Martin Zenker on the bass can be recognized – unseen – after the first few delicate plucks on the strings with which he prepares the ground, from which the voice “Futures” rises and unfolds like a rose, and then unfolds in the waves of the piano sway and reflect the shimmering rays of the drums. As if the four of them had been playing together for a long time, melodies are created from a single source, full of trust in each other’s ability and improvisation, so that when you listen to the music for a second time on this evening, that pleasant state of weightlessness occurs that makes club jazz so attractive. This time, however, it was less inspired by space travel than by the carefree spirit of the music itself.
Kim Minchan on the drums occasionally makes sure that nobody drifts off into the infinity of space with mighty solos, but that everyone becomes aware of the physical presence of the band again. As gently and sensitively as he can take himself back as a companion and discreet rhythm generator, his blows on the skin break their path with primeval force when he recognizes the unleashed seconds that a passage grants him. Some in the audience made big, amazed eyes, and some leaned forward, carried away – the advantage of the angle of view with their backs to the stage: unobstructed view of the audience ballet. Finally, one can only write good things about Theo Kolross, the man at the piano. So again this evening.
There was such warm applause from the guests for the convincing performance of the leading quartet that by the end of the first set what distinguishes jazz clubs as the fourth element was achieved: the highest possible operating temperature. The EBE jazz musicians then let the evening fade away in a free session.