Reviews that mention Bänz Oester
June 6, 2016
Zoo
Auricle Aur 14+15
Michael Formanek Ensemble Kolossus
The Distance
ECM 2484
Carlberg/Morris/Niggenkemper/Gray
Cosmopolitan Greetings
Red Piano RPR 4699-4419-2
Eric Platz
Life After Life
Allos Documents 012
Florian Hoefner
Luminosity
Origin Records 82706
Something In The Air: Those Who Teach Can Also Play
By Ken Waxman
As shibboleths go, the hoary “those who can do, those who can’t teach,” must rank at the very top of the list. Besides libelling the majority of educators who devote themselves to the task of imparting knowledge to students, it negates the activities of those who teach and do. Here are some musicians who maintain a full-time teaching carer along with consistent gigging. MORE
June 3, 2013
As The Sea
hatOLOGY 718
Garchik/Sacks/Ambrosio/Sperrazza
40Twenty
Yeah Yeah Records YY 0004
Extending the wide reach necessary to play their instrument with an equally ample range of ideas and skills, trombonists Samuel Blaser of Switzerland and New York’s Jacob Garchik confirm with these CDs that that the evolution of imaginative brass playing continues.
Blaser, whose experience encompasses working with other enlightened players like Swiss percussionist Pierre Favre and American drummer Gerry Hemingway, has composed a four-part suite to show off his prowess and that of his combo, featuring French guitarist Marc Ducret, Swiss bassist Bänz Oester and American drummer Gerald Cleaver. All-American and with a name that references the grueling club gigs of the 1950s, 40Twenty is a co-op quartet which highlights the improvisational and compositional muscle of all its members which include Jacob Garchik on trombone, pianist Jacob Sacks, bassist David Ambrosio and drummer Vinnie Sperrazza. MORE
July 12, 2004
Experiencing Tosca
Winter & Winter 910 093-2
WHO TRIO
The Current Underneath
Leo CD LR 379
Two approaches to the standard jazz piano trio end up with vastly different results with only one making a major statement.
On THE CURRENT UNDERNEATH, Swiss pianist Michel Wintsch puts aside the sentimental streak that undermined earlier efforts with his Euro-American WHO Trio to create nine slices of thoughtful improvised music. Japanese pianist Masabumi Kikuchi and his two famous American sidemen in Tethered Moon, seems to have picked up all the indolent romanticism cast aside by Wintsch however, making EXPERIENCING TOSCA, a torpid and somewhat lugubrious exercise, more notable for lockstep methodology and top-flight recording sound than a range of emotions. MORE
September 16, 2002
Open Songs
Altrisuoni AS 108
WINTSCH/FRITH/BAUMANN/TRONTIN
Whisperings
RecRec Music CD 75 EFA 05179
Swiss pianist Michel Wintsch posses a streak of romanticism that’s a mile wide and just as deep. How else would you explain the inclusion on his trio session of tunes by chansonniers Jacques Brel, Gilbert Bécaud and other Continental sentimentalists?
Sure by the time he’s finished with a tune like Bécaud’s “Et Maintenant” -- which English-speakers know as “What Now My Love” -- he’s deconstructed it into a potent improv exercise. But many times at the beginning or middle of standards or his own lush compositions, he appears to be reigning in his emotions just before he stumbles into André Gagnon or Roger Williams territory. MORE