Bassist Nils Kugelmann is the current high-flyer on the German jazz scene. In a very short time he has won various prizes, from the Biberach Jazz Prize, the Young Munich Jazz Prize and the Bavarian Jazz Association’s sponsorship prize to the BMW Young Artist Jazz Award and the Music Scholarship of the City of Munich to the Burghausen European Young Jazz Competition in March. Now comes his debut album “Stormy Beauty” out, not just anywhere, but with the act label, which otherwise publishes international stars and not Munich newcomers.
All in all, many already consider the 27-year-old one of the best European bass players. But even that is too short-sighted. Because Kugelmann is one of the most universal musicians in this country, a real all-rounder. Growing up in a musical family and teaching at the Pestalozzi Music School, he tried everything from an early age: singing, clarinet, piano or synthesizer, then bass. He balanced between composed and improvised music, between avant-garde and pop, between handmade and electronic.
He focused on this eclectic approach while studying bass at the Munich Music Academy, and so he is now the first choice when young colleagues put together a rhythm section, whether their names are Luca Zambito, Valentin Renner, Philipp Schiepek or Moritz Stahl. Or Roman Sladek from the Jazzrausch Bigband. And then Kugelmann also plays the piano in a duo with drummer Sebastian Wolfgruber or in a duo Lightville with his no less talented and successful partner Shuteen Erdenebataar the extremely rare contra-alto clarinet.
Kugelmann is always about the essentials that music can transport: beauty, excitement, hope, passion. “Stormy Beauty” demonstrates this impressively. “Finding Your Place” is the name of a piece on it, and one can state that Kugelmann has found his own style as a bass player and as a composer. He presents himself as a real bass berserker on the consistently powerful album, which is always catchy and enjoyable despite the highest level of complexity.
As with very few in his field, every single note has power and expression. He casually frees his instrument from the usual accompanying role, becomes part of his trio with the up-and-coming pianist Luca Zambito and, above all, the Leo Betzl Trio LBT well-known drummer Sebastian Wolfgruber not only rhythmically, but also melodically and harmonically to become a completely equal actor.
This creates a grandiose freedom filled with unrivaled reaction speed, whether in a hymn-like love song like “Song for a Golden Blossom” or in exciting and attentive observations of nature, which were a focus of his inspiration here. If Kugelmann and his exceptional trio now release the album in the underpass introduces, you will be able to experience what the club euphorically announces: “Unbridled passion and a musical maturity that a person in their mid-twenties is not yet entitled to.”
Nils Kugelmann: “Stormy Beauty”, act; live: Saturday, June 3, 8:30 p.m., Unterfahrt, Einsteinstr. 42, www.unterfahrt.de