Michael Wollny - Tandem (CD)

Release Date: 09/30/16

The meeting between two of Europe’s leading jazz stars: an extremely rare magic.

Two of Europe`s leading jazz artists team up for “Tandem”, Together they are to be heard exploring and expoiting all the sound possibilities of their instruments. Their stylistic palette does range widely. There is the mysterious, suspense-laden Björk Classic “Hunter.” They play Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” which the film-absorbed Wollny first encountered in the soundtrack of Oliver Stone’s “Platoon.” There is the anthemic 'Fourth of July' by Sufjan Stevens, a songwriter much admired by Wollny. The up-tempo number 'Vignette' by Gary Peacock is perhaps the only “classic” jazz tune on the album. The duo also plays a beautiful piece ('Song Yet Untitled') by the Swiss vocal soloist (and new ACT artist) Andreas Schaerer. Peirani’s preference for the melodic is underlined in his two original tunes on this album, above all in “Uniskate,” and also in Tango “Travesuras” by Peirani’s friend Tomás Gubitsch, an Argentinian-born composer based in Paris. Both of the original compositions by Wollny take the listener off in experimental and expressionist directions. The dialogue between them constantly brims with ideas, and they also have a perfect way of circling in and out of each other’s way. At one moment Wollny might be keeping quiet in some reassuring chords, but then he can break out into a fiercely wild passage, or he might lean into the piano to extract some muffled percussive sounds from it. As for Peirani, he can give the solidity and the seriousness of a church organ, but will also chirrup in little commentaries at the top of his instrument’s range, or deliver volleys and cascades of notes at improbable and probably illegal speeds. This duo of superb musicians can simultaneously be highly refined, and yet completely off-the-wall. They are two of the brightest lights of the international firmament of jazz as seen through a European prism. They have also put down a marker with “Tandem”: their stellar collaboration is most definitely going places.