YELLOWBIRD News

Routes is the result of their musical camaraderie, anchored in the musical tradition of the island and firmly rooted in jazz.With his brand new group consisting of Alex Wilson on keys, Hammond and melodica, Ira Coleman on bass, Dion Parson on drums, Michael Blake on tenor sax and Soweto Kinch on alto and vocals, one could argue that Blaser has successfully rounded up the ultimate lineup to present Jamaican jazz to a larger audience.

'Terra' is the debut album of jazz singer Hannah Weiss, the voice of the
Munich native, who grew up in Switzerland, can not only be cool and
warm, it also covers all temperature ranges
Weiss, winner of the BMW Welt Young Artist Jazz Award in 2019, skilfully
balances on nuances and, with her typical timbre, always sounds new and
surprisingly different - so that even without lyrics it is immediately clear what she
singing is about. About fear, about flight and hunger and pain. And about love,
longing and devotion. In the lyrics of her nine-part suite composition 'Terra', which
also gives the album its name, Weiss describes what she sees and what occupies
her mind, she sings about the paradoxically normal coexistence of the most
diverse side by side of emotional states, without judging, and in the knowledge
that that one does not make the other less relevant. On the one hand, Terra
sounds playfully light: a well-composed, beautiful-sounding concept album that
floats past you like a spring breeze.

'Hotel Florida', the debut album by trombonist Andreas Tschopp and
baritone saxophonist Matthias Tschopp's Swiss sextet Sparks and Tides,
delivers an enthralling, improvisation-laced set of electro-acoustic
soundscapes
The first collaboration co- led by brothers Andreas and Matthias Tschopp, the
Swiss sextet makes a subtly enthralling debut with Hotel Florida, an album
marked by lapidary textures, extended melodies, and finely calibrated production.
Sparks and Tides also refers to the flow of their music, which unfurls in unhurried
waves until suddenly surging with quicksilver flurries. Cinematic and full of
intriguing passages, it's music for unsettled dreams. "There are lots of little things
like drum machine tracks, bass drones, live sampling of the horns by the
keyboardist and using the sounds as samples, and also some modular synth
processing of the saxophone," Andreas says.
The group brings together some of the most creative figures on the small,
intertwined and fervently inventive Swiss jazz scene. A member of the R&Binfluenced electro- duo True, drummer Rico Baumann is as deeply versed in hip
hop, pop and electronic music as he is jazz and improvised music, which is the
terrain he inhabits with Andreas in the collective jazz quintet Le Rex.