Jazz pianist Michael Wollny: Music with completely new rules

It takes courage to give up all safety devices and just jump like that, without a parachute ”- this somewhat crooked but beautiful image was once coined by the guitarist Carlos Santana. He was asked about the record "Bitches Brew" that Miles Davis released in 1970. A controversial album that didn't seem to follow any rules. The famous trumpeter invited a handful of musicians into the studio, but didn't give them any notes, just said: "Play What You Hear" - play by ear. And then all these world jazz champions were at a loss. First. In the end, it turned out to be a masterpiece.

Music without rules.

Music that invents its own meaning and gives itself its basis: rare moments when it succeeds.

“Leucocyte”, the last record by the Esbjörn Svensson Trio 13 years ago, was one of them.

And now it's that time again.

The album "XXXX" has been released, the new record by the German jazz pianist Michael Wollny.

This German "Bitches Brew"

It begins with eerie knocking and crashing, howling shivering noises and a hissing sound like from an artificial lung. Is that the music's comment on the corona crisis? Cymbals and hi-hats mix in, vibrating synthesizers, and then a beat marches on, the saxophone throws in a theme, the bass plays an ostinato in high registers. And you are right in the middle of it. In a world that could have come from science fiction films, Edgar Allan Poe audio books, video games, krautrock or 1970s fusion music. Music that the ear has to get involved with. Which then turns into a trip that you never know where it will lead to next.

“XXXX”, this German “Bitches Brew”, is the new project by jazz pianist Michael Wollny.

He is a professor at the Musikhochschule Leipzig, and professor, that fits of course, but actually more like a

, because the 44-year-old always seems a bit out of this world, likes to be slightly absent and yet always ready for the next flash of inspiration, especially, when he's at the piano.

Wollny was already featured on the cover of Downbeat magazine, in jazz that is the signal that someone has reached the top.

From there you can obviously take the improvised music to a new level.

All-rounder Tim Lefebvre

For example, by putting together a pretty crazy looking band. Christian Lillinger, for example, is considered a free spirit on the drums, plays everything he finds, not just drums, and likes to screw himself into confusing ecstasies. Emile Parisien plays the saxophone, who has completely freed himself from all style dictates and uses his instrument more for sound waves that roll over his listeners. And the bass player is the all-rounder Tim Lefebvre.

“My idea was that everyone should improvise, just feel good and pursue their musical ideas,” says Wollny. And Tim Lefebvre explains: “In all of the eight hours we recorded, I didn't know what to do for maybe ten minutes. For the rest of the time, it always turned out to be quite logical. Very unusual! ”Both got together for the Zoom call and laugh a lot when they talk about their current album. It is based on four evenings in the Berlin jazz club A-Trane. When she stepped on stage, the band hadn't discussed anything, hadn't rehearsed anything, and there weren't any grades either. Nobody knew how it would sound and whether it would even work. In Atlanta Wollny mixed an album from the live recordings of the four evenings, there in the studio "suddenly a story emerged,a story".

The bassist Tim Lefebvre, who is a mainstay of the recording, has played with friends. David Bowie asked him to play bass on his last album "Black Star". For himself it was certainly an “unbelievable career boost”, says Lefebvre, which he fondly thinks back on. ("David never had endings, he just wrote his songs without ending, so he let us, that is, the band always do as we wanted.") Why play along anyway when a German jazz musician asks for an album, surely not millions of buyers finds? “Michael is one of the best musicians I've ever heard. If he wants me with him anywhere, I'll come, ”he says. “If everyone is a top musician, the joint project doesn't have to be good. But it was like that here. That was a magical project. "