Tristano Unchained | Live Recording at Loft

tickets:
regular: 14,- €uro
students, disabled persons: 7,- €uro

doors: 7.30 pm CEST
concert starts:
approx. 8.00 pm CEST

When cineastes hear the band name Tristano Unchained, they might think of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, but jazz connoisseurs will naturally think of Lennie Tristano. The blind pianist and composer gave bebop a new twist at the end of the 1940s when he interwove his experience of classical music, the polytonality of modernism and the counterpoint of late baroque with the swinging blue notes of African-American jazz. In this way, Tristano created music with an enormous awareness of form and at the same time an airy, harmonically open quality. Many people were interested in this at the time who were later referred to as “cool jazzers”, such as saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. And saxophonist Julian Bossert is still fascinated by it in the here and now. That is why he has named his band “Tristano Unchained”....

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tickets:
regular: 14,- €uro
students, disabled persons: 7,- €uro

doors: 7.30 pm CEST
concert starts:
approx. 8.00 pm CEST

When cineastes hear the band name Tristano Unchained, they might think of Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained, but jazz connoisseurs will naturally think of Lennie Tristano. The blind pianist and composer gave bebop a new twist at the end of the 1940s when he interwove his experience of classical music, the polytonality of modernism and the counterpoint of late baroque with the swinging blue notes of African-American jazz. In this way, Tristano created music with an enormous awareness of form and at the same time an airy, harmonically open quality. Many people were interested in this at the time who were later referred to as “cool jazzers”, such as saxophonists Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh. And saxophonist Julian Bossert is still fascinated by it in the here and now. That is why he has named his band “Tristano Unchained”.

Julian Bossert also has a great penchant for the art of contrafact. Lennie Tristano also mastered it, and it was relatively widespread in jazz, especially in the 1940s and 50s. A new melody is played over the chord sequence of an existing piece. This sounds succinct, but it is not, because the change can be so profound that one can actually speak of a new, original composition. Pieces like “Ornithology” by Charlie Parker over the chords of the musical hit “How high the moon” prove this. On the 2021 album “Wild Horses” by his band “Tristano Unchained”, Julian Bossert also composed several pieces inspired by the harmonies of historical jazz pieces. It was the third album that the musician, who was born in Pforzheim in 1988, released as a bandleader. After completing his studies at the University of Music in Nuremberg with a master’s degree in jazz arrangement and composition, he moved to Cologne around eight years ago. This is where he and his fellow musicians feel at home. They have now recorded a new album. It is called On Democracy because everyone is equally involved in the creation of the music. Based on the forms and harmonies of jazz standards, the music is created in the free space of the moment.

Beate Sampson

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