It would be worth trying to play Christof Sänger's recording of Duke Ellington's “In a Sentimental Mood” to American jazz piano superstars, say Herbie Hancock, Keith Jarrett and Brad Mehldau, to let them guess who will be at the Bösendorfer Grand Imperial in 2015 the famous MPS studio in Villingen. Maybe Hancock would say it was Keith and Brad Mehldau it had to be a decayed Art Tatum production. In any case, they would be full of praise for this insane introduction, which exhausts the possibilities of the grandiose instrument in the first few seconds and hardly suggests that a wistful, filigree ballad will follow. And would be amazed at the irrepressible pianistic joy of playing and the musical flashes of inspiration,which the entire recording “Tribute To My Favorites” is bursting with.
Unbridled joy in playing and the musical flashes of inspiration
With Christof Sanger's original improvisations, you never know beforehand how one of these age-old standards from the Great American Songbook will begin and how it will end. But you know that the pianist, who acts so calmly and modestly in private, always climbs into a true intoxication of sound in which no note of the original song follows the other, the swinging ductus or the Latin American rhythm abruptly into a rag or a stride piano -Change game in which the bass notes, octaves and block chords in the left hand just overturn. The saxophonist Ernie Watts, his long-time partner, gave him the best musical testimony that a jazz musician can give to another jazz musician: he is a technically brilliant musician, exceptionally sensitive and can read minds.
These skills have also made him an ideal partner for female singers, for whom he has always rolled out a suitably beautiful carpet with sensitive preludes and a flair for harmonies. Sheila Jordan could rely on it as well as the black blues and gospel stars Harriet Lewis, Angela Brown, Denise Gordon and Brenda Boykin, whom he has accompanied as a regular pianist of the Barrelhouse Jazzband since 2010 during their guest appearances with the band. Apropos Barrelhouse Jazzband: That Christof Sänger can provide the Frankfurt veteran of traditional New Orleans jazz with the harmonious basis just as stylishly as he explores free jazz with Sunny Murray and tries out style variants of a neo-bebop with Branford Marsalis or Paquito D'Rivera,makes him the undisputed universalist in the modern scene of specialized jazz pianists.
On the road for 30 years
Christof Sänger has earned an international reputation for a good thirty years with many guest appearances in New York clubs, on tours through South America to Japan and with his solo appearances throughout Europe, but as a Wiesbadener he has always remained rooted in the region.
Art Minister Angela Dorn (Die Grünen) has now announced that the singer will receive the Hessian Jazz Prize endowed with 10,000 euros.
He deserves the award which is intended to honor artists, ensembles and personalities connected to jazz “for their musical achievements or for special services to the development of the Hessian jazz scene”. As the thirtieth prize winner, he belongs to an impressive row of great jazz musicians in the region with international charisma, which began in 1991 with the saxophone giant Heinz Sauer and has meanwhile become such illustrious names as Michael Sagmeister, Reimer von Essen, Christof Lauer, Ekkehard Jost, Wolfram Knauer, Emil Mangelsdorff , Bob Degen and last year Tony Lakatos.