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Musicians: Jochen Baldes ts, ss, cl, Nicolai Kobus voice, Michael Gassmann tp, Thomas Bauser hammond organ, Michael Bucher g, Dominic Egli dr
Recording date: 2009
In a very successful project, the saxophonist and arranger Jochen Baldes from Zurich has composed music to the prize-winning cycle of poems "ach anna. seufzerkalendarium" by the Hamburg poet Nicolai Kobus and created a suite that takes a whole evening to play. Baldes has not only been established as a good-sounding name in jazz circles for quite some time, but above all he has found his very own, extremely vital biotope between New Yorker post-bop and Swiss neo-cool. Wide-ranging, polyphonic melodies with intricate arrangements, which provide clear contours for improvising but are still structured very openly, create an ideal second life for the texts that are rich in tradition and extremely ironic, but which also have a tangible, down-to-earth pathos. Kobus himself gives his work a voice, in a way as a literary sixth member of a jazz quintet with top-rate musicians.
Jochen Baldes has his debut in the series "Jazz thing Next Generation" (with his project "Subnoder", which he took over from Michael Gassmann) at the beginning of 2007, a debut that won him a lot of praise from many sides. The "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" called him a "spirited and inspired improviser", and "Stereo" wrote that "... listening to this music is well worth your while". Now it is time for the multi-talented artist – Baldes is also active as a painter and sculptor - to set off for new horizons. Although the connection between jazz and poetry is not really a new idea, this genre has certainly not been explored to its fullest potential. Baldes has succeeded in doing something that often did not work in previous attempts: creating a harmonic link between text and sounds. However, "ach anna" is also a rare gift for open and attentive musicians.
Kobus, born in 1968, received a grant as part of the Ernst-Meisner Prize for his cycle of poems (2005). The Jury’s evaluation: "Nicolai Kobus" lively "Seufzerkalendarium" (trans.: "Sigh Calendar"), composed of an 'Ach Anna' love poem for each month of the year, prologue and epilogue, is impressive due to its playful-consistent, naive-casual tone while being self-mocking at the same time. The texts are convincing thanks to their rhythmic strength, their intense sound and the formal expertise of the author." We can understand this as almost a challenge to put the text into a more far-reaching musical context. Kobus has found a congenial partner with Jochen Baldes. Nicolai Kobus is going to present the project live with Baldes and his fellow musicians starting the fall of 2009.