Eight Cylinder Big Band

Description

Where the era of jazz orchestras ended in the 1940s, today a pleasingly large number of young big bands are starting from scratch. The pianist, keyboarder and organist Matthias Bublath is now also putting his musical passions into practice on a large scale. And since he likes it brawny, his jazz orchestra also bears the appropriate name: Eight Cylinder Bigband.

What gives this musical engine unusually large displacement, torque and pulling power is the fact that Bublath has tailored this project not only for the big band but also for the Hammond organ: the largest line-up in jazz meets the instrument, which itself is almost an orchestra in its own right.

Unlike previous Hammond greats who fulfilled their dream of becoming a big band, Bublath wrote all the pieces and arrangements himself. And the spectrum ranges from blues and gospel to soul and funk to Afro-Caribbean and Latin - the main thing is that it grooves. Expression of a rare versatility, which the 41-year-old has acquired with an equally rare mixture of talent, diligence and dedication to music. And with a career that has never shied away from the challenge, as evidenced by competition wins at the "Montreux Solo Piano Competition" or the "Charlie Palmieri Latin Jazz Piano Competition". After studying at the Bruckner Conservatory in Linz, at the legendary Berklee College of Music in Boston and finally at the Manhattan School of Music, Bublath lived and worked for a good eight years in New York, still the toughest but also most instructive place in the world for musicians. He played with stars such as Mike Clark, Lionel Loueke, Zach Danziger, Tim Lefebvre and Obed Calvaire, and released his first own albums before returning to his native Munich. To quickly become one of the scene's restless assets - as a keyboard motor for soul, blues and folk greats like Charly Antolini, San2 or Claudia Koreck, with pop greats like Sarah Connor, in stage projects like "Charlie and his Orchestra" or the multimedia shows "Amazonas meets Jazz" and "Oceans" with his father, the science journalist Joachim Bublath, but above all with many of his own projects documented on meanwhile eleven albums.
His biggest, not only in terms of numbers, is now the "Eight Cylinder Bigband", a long-cherished heart's desire, which he has been working towards for some years now, and which has been awarded the sponsorship prize of the Initiative Musik for the year 2019. The band is accordingly hand-picked: At the heart of the band is the rhythm section, which has been inseparably cuddled up at Bublath's side for two years now, with Patrick Scales on bass, Christian Lettner on drums (both of whom have been rhythm guarantors for Klaus Doldingers Passport for many years) and Ferdinand Kirner, perhaps the most sought-after guitarist in Germany at the moment.

And also the brass sections, which are played with accurate big band strength, are equipped with the best big band soloists of the Southern German scene: on trumpets Nemanja Jovanivic, Florian Jechlinger, Andreas Unterrainer and Reinhard Greiner provide powerful high-note sound pressure and razor-sharp licks; Jürgen Neudert, Jakob Grimm, Erwin Gregg and Hans Heiner Bettinger form a trombone section that also has a J.J. Johnson (as the inventor of the trombone quartet in jazz) happy and also the even five-piece saxophone set with Moritz Stahl, Ulrich Wangenheim, Florian Riedl, Axel Kühn and Gregor Bürger is not only washed with all kinds of musical water (from the Hi-Fly Orchestra to the Earforce and Jazz Rush to various other big bands), but also cuts an outstanding figure on clarinets and flutes if required. As "special guest", trumpeter Takuya Kuroda, who has meanwhile become a "rising star" in the USA, is on board, a close companion of Bublath since the two of them once met at a jam session in Harlem.

A cornucopia in a class of its own, which Bublath also needs for his pieces bursting with changes in tempo, rhythm and harmony and with the greatest difficulties. Bublath is never satisfied with the simple or the tried and tested: His "Gospel Song", for example, contains all the qualities of religious black music, but also unexpected pointed brass interjections and a dancing waltz line. His "Return To The Source", one of the excursions into the equally beloved Latin cosmos, begins with the classical clave rhythm, to end in a rousing question and answer game of the wind sections. From high-pressure funk with mischievous James Brown quotations ("Dump The Goose" for example), the album continues with ballads like "Sad Belt" to the furious finale, reminiscent of a black service.
So this "Eight Cylinder Bigband" accelerates like few others, really uses all available gears and masters every bold curve. A tour de force that everyone loves to join.