Matthias Spillmann Trio - Live at the Bird's Eye Jazz Club

Getting to the core of the matter is what drives trumpeter Matthias Spillmann and his stage companions, Andreas Lang and Moritz Baumgärtner, in this CD recorded live.

And this means to find the essence of this music genre we call jazz, using the repertory of its history, namely songs written by William C. Handy (“St. Louis Blues”), Billy Strayhorn (“A Flower is a Lovesome Thing”), Ornette Coleman (“Peace” and “Una Muy Bonita”) and Joe Lovano (“Fort Worth”). Spillmann himself contributes only with one piece, “Kinderlied #1”, but not because he isn’t a remarkable composer. After all, he has composed for his long time working band MATS-UP for more than twenty years and he’s one of the score contributors – in the domains of chamber music – for the Zurich’s Ensemble fur Neue Musik.

Here, he prefers the position of the arranger and the soloist. But if you understand the word “arrangement” as orchestration be aware: to arrange, in this collection of interpretations, is to keep everything raw and uncut. That’s the concept in cause: jazz as the most authentical music expression possible, without artífices and complications. The task needed instrumentalists who like to get to the point, and Spillmann found them in a Danish double bassist (Lang) known for his ability to react immediatly to any given situation and a German drummer (Baumgärtner) capable of pushing things ahead with his uncommon energy, at the same time being able to mix detailed colors and textures. Yes, the result of such endeavour takes out the breath of you. There’s indeed life for jazz after its so wrongly announced death.