Intakt Records im Loft/Köln
Intakt Records im Loft/Köln
26-28 May 2025
Cologne, Germany
Review by Ken Waxman
Photos by Susan O’Connor
Rather than a stuffy ceremony, a musical celebration took place when Patrik Landolt, founder and former managing director of the Swiss label Intakt Records, was awarded the 2025 German Record Critics’ Honour Award.
The commemoration was part of a three-day music festival in late May featuring Intakt artists at The Loft, Köln’s storied music space . Along with the plaque presentation on the festival’s final evening, six sets of exemplary improvised music were featured. True to the 40-year-old Zürich-based label’s international scope, artists who played were from other parts of Europe and North America as well as Switzerland.
Swiss pianist Sylvie Courvoisier was featured twice. She opened the festival with a solo performance dedicated to the late pianist Irène Schweizer (1941-2024), whose Live at Taktlos was the label’s first release. The second evening, Courvoisier played a duo concert with fellow Swiss, percussionist Lucas Niggli, who along with Courvoisier has recorded for Intakt for many years.
Trios were another feature of the Loft shows, with one on stage every night. The first found German tenor saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock playing with Americans bassist Brandon Lopez and drummer Tom Rainey. The second night’s group was Anna Webber’s simpletrio2000 featuring Canadian tenor saxophonist/flutist Webber along with two Americans: pianist Matt Mitchell and drummer John Hollenbeck.
Punkt.Vrt.Plastik’s the final night’s band, combined the talents of Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and German drummer Christian Lillinger. Finally, the last night’s first set was given over to a spectacular solo recital by American tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis.
A reflection, not a reproduction, Courvoisier didn’t play any Schweizer themes. Instead she confirmed the freedom her fellow Swiss pianist pioneered in the early 1970s for improvisers of all genres and orientations. Balancing implements atop the piano’s string set and frequently plucking or strumming those cords with guitar picks, Courvoisier was as often inside the instrument’s body as on the keyboard. Still her keyboard work was equally percussive, with slides across its width and pressure among the piano’s keys.
Beginning with introductory patterns, she frequently pivoted to full-force power, amplified with wide-spanned pushes or constantly repeated single key tension. While many sequences involved these quick sprints across the keyboard as well as string jiggles and stops plus shaking two tiny cymbals – given to her by Schweizer herself – there were times when her expressive glissandi and patterning turned towards swing passages and the Blues. At points in fact where her keyboard swirls were so frenetic that they suggested the pseudo-ragtime clanks of Knuckles O’Toole or Crazy Otto.
And could that be a snatch of “Frère Jacques” in the midst of an improv? However most of her forays were measured and dramatic, allowing Courvoisier to expose and conclude with themes that were both melodic and imaginative.
Courvoisier’s pressurized keyboard thrusts were put to good use the next evening in a duet with the massive kit of percussionist Niggli. It contained a dual pedal bass drum, several snares, toms, a hi hat, numerous small and large cymbals, a shruti box, chains, and a collection of mallets, brushes, sticks and wisps.
As the set evolved, Niggli continued excavating from nearby swag bags miscellaneous toys, springs, rattles, unattached cymbals and a couple of cudgels that looked like the taped blades of hockey sticks, using them to scrape and slide along the sides and tops of his stationary drums.
Often smacking drum tops with the back ends of thin mallets, Niggli also emphasized rim shots and cadenced rumbles as a counterpoint to Courvoisier’s explosions of complex chording and harmonies which frequently swayed into hard-driving, low-pitched notes.
Interspaced with those rugged outbursts were sequences of quiet keyboard contemplation in the form of single-note emphasis coupled with internal string rubs. Concurrently she frequently stretched both arms to their full extent to roll out thick, low-pitched chords which eventually coalesced into swaying, elevated melodies. So energized was the drummer by her improvising, that at one point he leaped upwards from his stool recoiling from his own furious drum-pounding.
Complementing or mocking the pianist’s atonal strings forays, there was another instance when Niggli stroked a violin bow on a large cymbal. That established, he eventually retreated from drumstick pressure on the cymbals to allow the pianist’s speedy keyboard sweep to signal the finale.
During the final night at the Loft, a similar piano-percussion dynamic was established by the Punkt.Vrt.Plastik trio. However even though she used a second on-stage piano for internal exploration, Draksler’s piano expositions were generally less forceful than Courvoisier’s.
On the other hand, drummer Lillinger was constantly in motion. Rapidly propelling from one part of his standard kit to another, the drummer’s switch among drumsticks and brushes was so accelerated that he launched a couple of sticks into the air that landed some distance from his setup.
Mitigating force and referee for this duo’s sonic challenge was the seemingly unflappable bassist Petter Eldh, whose mostly inaudible pumps and stops cemented the cadenced foundation upon which the other two operated. Especially because of Lillinger’s overriding presence, the pianist literally had to be on her toes with pedal action. But this didn’t stop her from also charting a musical course which included intimate swing, nursery-rhyme-like simple melodies, rounded tensile asides and a linear flow. While there were allusions to half-forgotten ballads, pressure was emphasized more than prettiness.
Methodically sounding a patterned groove as well as natural sonorities, Draksler also foregrounded tension-release as she swept up and down the keyboard with repeated patterns and clanks that were just tough enough to counter the drummer’s expressive drum-top smashes, jabs and pumps. While Eldh frequently laid out, the bassist’s pinpointed strokes not only increased the connective tension at points, but used progressive plucks during the last tune and subsequent encore to steer Draksler’s Boppy runs and Lillinger’s hard-hitting drumstick rolls and pops into a relatable groove.
Despite her name being most prominent in simpletrio2000, Anna Webber adamantly stressed that it was a cooperative band when the three played the second set on the festival’s second night.
With the instrumental arrangement emphasizing equality, — Mitchell’s piano on one side of the room, and Webber’s horns on the other with Hollenbeck’s kit slightly behind her — the playing actually turned out to be a friendly clash of opposing stresses during Punkt.Vrt.Plastik’s selections. More tune-directed than the other bands, this trio was also more Jazz-focused, with the drummer’s paced press rolls, the pianist’s measured comping, meeting Webber’s melodic inventions which encompassed reflective reed slides and modulated flute trills. Careful processional chords and consistent horizontal motion among the three didn’t preclude invention, however.
Occasionally Mitchell would introduce a cascade of sped-up notes, clashes or emphasized key–spanking, usually as an addendum to Webber outputting deep dark honks and slurs that bordered on classic R&B. Hollenbeck’s cymbal clashes and stick work on drum tops rebounded in tandem with keyboard slides or saxophone slurs. He also used mallet pressure on a small wooden box as amplification of the saxophonist’s tone-variation examinations.
As for Webber, she was equally proficient peeping out lyrical flutters on flute accompanied by gentle rainbow-like pacing from the pianist as she was creating modernist swing statements on tenor alongside Hollenback’s rim clanks and drum smacks.
Another trio configuration played during the second set on the festival’s first night. Unlike Webber, Ingrid Laubrock played only tenor saxophone, yet her assertive improvising was as thoroughly integrated with Tom Rainey’s drum beats and Brandon Lopez’s bass pacing as Anna Webber’s playing was with members of the other long-established trio. Looser and more dedicated to free improvisation, Laubrock’s thick tongue stops and speech-inflected reed textures were cushioned and advanced with hard string slaps and steadying percussion smacks.
Lopez’s continued string pops and Rainey’s bouncing ruffs and measured cymbal slaps meant that tripartite expositions were integrated whether the reed line on top was studded with altissimo squeaks, extended held notes and unexpected tongue pops, switched to mellow vibrations or emphasized moderated clarion tones. Rainey’s rim shots, bass drum pumps and graceful echoes created by popping a mallet on a cloth spread over a snare, stayed strictly in the background. Regardless, there were a capella interludes when Lopez had space for bass extensions, projecting sul tasto shakes and thick string rubs to great effect.
As notable as Laubrock’s and Webber’s reed improvising was with their bands, an even more confident tenor saxophone display was offered by James Brandon Lewis during the first set on the final night .
Encompassing gentle vibrations, quiet squeaks, circular–breathed passages up and down the scale, he also leaned into screaming splintered tones, bottom-pitched scoops, and repeated slurs and smears. Throughout, he circled his textures among abstract multiphonics and snatches of familiar tunes. “America the Beautiful”, “God Save the King”, “Somewhere over the Rainbow”. “Wade in the Water” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” were quoted briefly, then vanished just as quickly only to reappear in truncated form later in his solo. So too were a few passes at “La Marseillaise”. But considering Lewis’ lineage in gospel and advanced Jazz, he could have as easily been quoting Albert Ayler’s “Ghosts” rather than the French national anthem.
While he occasionally slowed down his output to repeat balladic asides, most phrases were aggressive and performed prestissimo and staccato, note-bending his sounds into bugle-like spetrofluctuation. When called back for an encore, Lewis puffed and fluttered his way through a non-lachrymose variant of “Danny Boy”, then with emotional vibrations swerved into a finale of “La Marseillaise/Ghosts”.
Of course the reason for this ad hoc festival was the awarding of the 2025 Deutschen Schallplattenkritik prize to Patrik Landolt. This took place during an appropriately low-key ceremony in front of the musicians’ assembled instruments at the beginning of the final evening of concerts. If proof were needed as to why the Intakt founder deserved the honor, it was demonstrated by the quality of the music presented during the course of the three-day festivities.
More photos by can be found on the Artists, Reviews and Festivals pages of Jazzword.