Rolf Kühn - Fearless

Rolf Kühn was an exceptional artist, a German jazz musician of the highest rank, and one of the few truly world-class talents, according to critic Bert Noglik. Kühn had no idea it would be his last recording when he met with his quartet at Berlin’s Hansa Studio in late June 2022. And so, “Fearless” will come as a surprise to the jazz world, released as the final musical testament of the “Gentleman of Jazz” (as the FAZ described him). The album was carefully completed and curated with great love and respect for Kühn’s vision by his closest circle – his brother Joachim, his wife Melanie, his band, and arranger Jörg Achim Keller.

Kühn’s compositions, whether balladic or fast-paced and driving, always left room for what jazz meant to him: creating music together, letting it take flight through improvisation that developed from listening and feeling. This time, he said, he had written the material as a personal experiment, composing not at the piano but directly notating the music. “The piano was always my instrument of control. Now, I feel like I don’t need it anymore.” The main themes of his compositions were fully written out, but everything in between was open and arose from the moment. Even who took the first solo wasn’t predetermined; such spontaneity had always been essential to him.

“Fearless” includes seven original compositions by Kühn, as well as three cover versions. As his biographer Maxi Broecking writes in the liner notes, when listening to the album, you hear that virtuoso, sharply contoured yet warm clarinet tone, crystal clear and precise even in the softer passages. This is present in tender, dreamy ballads like “Somewhere” (L. Bernstein) and “Tears in Heaven” (E. Clapton), as well as in the spontaneously developed “Free Exit.”