Joachim Kühn - Voodoo Sense (CD)

Release Date: 08/30/13

An intoxicating brew of Afro-centric jazz, rhythmically dynamic, free spirited and emotionally charged. Feat. saxophone legend Archie Shepp.

With his openmindedness and his sense for the magic of music, Joachim Kühn, the most eminent international pianist in the history of German jazz, is not only one of the greatest experimenters but also one of the most important integrative figures in jazz. 'Voodoo Sense' reconfirms this yet again: an album on which he again acts as a catalyst, bringing together people and their music that had previously lived in entirely different worlds. On 'Voodoo Sense' Kühn revives an association that has persisted for almost 50 years, ties it together with his current band and then has both set sail for new shores, navigated by young African musicians: It was 1967 in New York's Village Vanguard club that Kühn first experienced the saxophonist Archie Shepp live. 'The 'New Thing' that he introduced into jazz was the expression of exactly what I was feeling,' Kühn recalls. The paths of these kindred spirits, who both keep their music universal and open to influences, often crossed after that, ultimately leading them to join forces in 2010 for a duet. So what could have been more logical than to add Shepp to Kühn's 'Wüstenjazz' trio with the Moroccan singer and guembri virtuoso Majid Bekkas and the Spanish drummer Ramon Lopez? Already the album opener of 'Voodoo Sense' is a beacon of light, Coltrane‘s classic 'Kulu Se Mama': Kühn, Shepp and Co. breathe their very own brand of new life into this milestone of jazz history. Original quotes interpreted by Majid Bekkas and highly expressive, expansive solo improvisations interface with the power of hauling Afro-Arabic rhythms to give birth to a new, trance-like jazz. Whether with archaic world music, the blues-imbued saxophone ballad 'L'eternal Voyage', with studies of pianistic harmony like 'Crossing The Mirror' or thundering drama like the concluding 'Firehorse', with the aid of his friends Kühn has taken yet another step forward in his quest for the magic of his own, one music - the 'Voodoo Sense' as it were.