Benjamin Lackner – p
Mathias Eick – tp
Mark Turner | Maciej Obara – sax
Linda May Han Oh | Harish Raghavan – b
Matthieu Chazarenc – dr
Quartet
Benjamin Lackner – p
Mathias Eick | Mathieu Bordenave– tp | sax
Jerôme Regard | Paul Kleber – b
Manu Katché | Matthieu Chazarenc – dr
Trio
Benjamin Lackner – p
Jerôme Regard – b
Matthieu Chazarenc – dr
Less than three years ago, the German-American pianist Benjamin Lackner painted a sensitive portrait of the times with his album LAST DECADE (ECM, 2022), which applied itself like a healing plaster to the challenges of the time without resorting to escapism. This record with trumpeter Mathias Eick, bassist Jérôme Regard and drummer Manu Katché was so coherent and complete in itself that there was absolutely nothing to add to the music. But the moment is a moment because there is always an aftermath. Simply carrying on as on LAST DECADE was out of the question for the sensitive sound director Lackner because three years later, new stories need to be told with different means.
Only Mathias Eick remains from the old quartet. They are joined by saxophonist Mark Turner, bassist Linda May Han Oh and drummer Matthieu Chazarenc. This line-up alone is a statement. A Norwegian and a Frenchman – you could also casually say two Europeans, but there are such huge historical, cultural and mental differences between Norway and France that you can hardly speak of common roots. Linda May Han Oh unites a whole bundle of identities. Born in Malaysia, she grew up in Australia and has lived in the USA since the age of 25. Mark Turner, on the other hand, is one of the most distinctive voices of contemporary American jazz sensibility. Lackner himself has roots in Berlin and Los Angeles and acts as a kind of link between all the temperaments and mentalities in his band.
Lackner’s sound-psychological sensitivity is further demonstrated by the fact that this particular mixing ratio was not intended at all. “I always go for the sound first. I’ve been following Mark Turner’s career since 1995, for example. He plays with great calm, leaves a lot of space and creates wide arcs with his solos. This calmness helped us a lot with the recordings. I’ve also wanted to work with Linda May Han Oh for a long time. But it’s not easy to find a date with them here in Europe. The fact that we come together from so many different corners of the world – Paris, Oslo, Boston, Los Angeles and Berlin – is more of a coincidence. And yet these backgrounds make themselves felt musically and emotionally. Because everyone brings their own environment with them. And we really only got to know each other in the studio in the presence of Manfred Eicher.”
Why is this emphasis on environment and identity so important now? In an era of increasing globalization and the digitalized uniformity of the individual, we can perceive an increasingly sensitive relationship of large parts of the world’s population to the question of identity, which often opens up rifts rather than filling them in. And that’s where Benjamin Lackner comes in. He succeeds in harmonizing all these different cultural influences and world views by taking them seriously instead of ignoring them. Without having to resort to slogans or waving banners, he very subtly confronts a reality that he neither can nor wants to deny. In this respect, SPINDRIFT follows on from LAST DECADE but under completely different circumstances and with a correspondingly more pointed result. To put it in a nutshell, SPINDRIFT is music that concerns us all, regardless of where we come from, how and with what we identify ourselves and what we are perceived as from the outside.
Space is an essential moment on this album. Everything is created in the room. As a listener, you are not presented with a finished product, but are part of the creation process and can literally hear the five participants while listening. The recordings were actually made very spontaneously, and this freshness is palpable. Everyone gave each other an incredible amount of space. This is especially true of the band leader himself. You don’t have to listen to him incessantly, but he radiates such gravity that his presence can be felt in every single moment. It is precisely this quality that reflects his character, and it is probably for this reason in particular that he chose these contributors. “With this combination, I had such trust in the people that I didn’t feel I had to do much. I could just let it happen. In most cases, we actually went for the first take, but they are my tunes after all. And I have no urge to prove myself in the music. I would find that terrible.”
Benjamin Lackner is certainly not a dogmatist, neither as a person nor musically. He lets his fellow musicians do their thing, even if he would perhaps make a completely different decision in the same situation. But then he wouldn’t need a band, he could deliver everything on his own. The entire album is characterized by an incomparable generosity of mutual expression. This acceptance of different opinions and attitudes is also a counterpoint to the zeitgeist. Because this is the only way to come together. Eick, Turner, May Han Oh, Chazerenc and Lackner come together, unconditionally and with an open mind. This is precisely why they arrive at solutions together that are just as surprising for them as they are for the listener, and surprisingly so with every new listen.
The five know in which time and against which background SPINDRIFT was recorded. Where LAST DECADE was all peace and quiet, this time there are a few shadows running through the songs. That is intentional. “I just want to give love and leave space,” Lackner sighs with deepest conviction, and yet he does so much more. First and foremost, his album is a suite of wonderfully composed and performed pieces, but beyond that it is also an aid to becoming aware of the dimension of what is only supposedly inevitable. Benjamin Lackner reminds us that we all have a voice.
Wolf Kampmann
Why is music still being made and released on albums at all? Why is it still possible, even after centuries, to express things that have never been said before with the same, extremely manageable stock of notes? Because each of these melodies, concepts or constellations would be absolutely new? Or is it perhaps rather because a few select musical personalities, with almost magical foresight, hit the exact note that synchronizes with a general need at the time of release and expresses an emotional state or hope that could only be captured very inaccurately with words?
One such musician is the Berlin-based sound philosopher Benjamin Lackner, who has created a counterpoint to the tempo addiction that forces more and more information on us in ever shorter intervals with his snapshot LAST DECADE (ECM, 2022), which rests in infinity. Was that his intention? Hardly. Is it a coincidence? Much less. Disregarding any hierarchy of sounds and attaching importance to every single note is simply the way, the holistic profundity and seriousness, indeed the unshakeable reliability with which the pianist realizes his music.
Listening to Lackner playing with the Norwegian trumpeter Mathias Eick and the two Frenchmen Jérôme Regard on bass and Manu Katché on drums brings back memories. Memories of the sound of a time that may seem better in retrospect. This impression is deceptive, because even if Lackner neither wants to nor can free himself from his memories, his impulse to play this music is no different from that of the protagonists from the past. LAST DECADE is a window into the present, in which the reminiscences of memory are, of course, audible and tangible. Without copying anyone, Lackner and the members of his band connect to a lost aesthetic and transport their idea of an imaginary past confidently into the future. What sometimes sounds like an homage is ultimately a self-confident determination of their position.
What distinguishes Benjamin Lackner from many of his role models is his avoidance of grand gestures. The poetic casualness with which he plays his fantastically beautiful melodies is reminiscent of the flight of a butterfly, whose trajectory draws the most enchanting ornaments in the air without them being immediately tangible. With Lackner, the small rests in the large and the large in the small. The connecting element between the two principles is the unpretentious moment in which it happens.
The recordings for LAST DECADE took place in September 2021, when times were already complicated enough, but nobody would have guessed at the time what point we would have reached socially, globally and individually at the time of its release. With almost prophetic foresight, Benjamin Lackner created music over a year ago that lays itself over the hardships and fears of the present like a healing film.
He opens doors and turns the dualism of musician and listener on its head, because he almost gives the impression that it is he who is listening for us into the almost irresolvable complexity of our worries and hopes. These songs were not made for the sake of music, but to be heard, no, to be felt and lived. “I had to learn to stay with myself despite all the political and social turbulence and to create the warmth that I give on this album from within myself,” states Benjamin Lackner. He has overcome this hurdle with LAST DECADE he has not only overcome this hurdle with flying colors, but he has also gifted the world with a piece of music that, if every citizen of the world in East and West, rich and poor, old and young, were to listen to it once a day, would open the gates to a better future.
Wolf Kampmann
Born in Berlin in 1976, the German-American pianist Benny Lackner has lived in California and New York since the age of 13 and spent many years living on two continents until he finally moved to Berlin in 2008 – he knows life on the road only too well. At some point, however, he just wanted to arrive. DRAKE (Ozella, 2019), the current and sixth album by his trio, which he founded in New York in 2002 and which has since played numerous concerts on stages on almost every continent, is about this longing for a home and safe haven.
This long-standing relationship based on trust between Benny Lackner, drummer Matthieu Chazarenc and bassist Jerome Regard is characterized by an almost telepathic interplay and also by a grown serenity. During a joint performance at the 2016 XJazz Festival, the musicians reached a new level of relaxation. “It wasn’t about proving ourselves or showing how fast we could play. It was all about the song and giving the melodies space. We finally found our sound as a band that night.”
The songs for the next studio album soon crystallized. With its field recordings, drum loops and deep improvisations, Rise to the Occasion is a highlight of DRAKE and is representative of the formation’s characteristic electro-acoustic style. At the same time, the song represents the principle of concentrating fully on the essence. And it is precisely this work on a very special electro-acoustic sound in combination with a special feel for melodies and harmonies that do not conform to the usual patterns and expectations that makes the piano trio stand out in the jazz piano trio landscape. It is not swing elements and rampant improvisations with a focus on the greatest possible effect that one encounters here, but simple musical themes that are embellished with prudence and emotion, which, in addition to stimulating electronic effects, also carry a calm pulse that is the basis for intensive sound painting.
Occasionally, elements of the fusion movement of the seventies are also used, sometimes, like some bands of those days, without the over-emphasized electronic expression and less pronounced in intensity. Rather, the sound is scaled back, especially as no lush electric guitars intervene in the sound, which is ultimately shaped by the keyboards and the occasional use of electronic effects. Occasionally, as on Rise To The Occasion, trance-like passages creep in, supported by the monotonously progressing drums, over which the chirping is sometimes quite discreet and filigree. Filigree, yes, such songs are also completely prepared in this way, gently dabbing piano sounds run through the floating Decompression, whereby this is gently supported by the rhythm section; It’s Gonna Happen is also a good example of this. Entwurzelt lets the bassist act with a distorted sound, you could be forgiven for thinking that an electric guitar has now slipped in. It’s always these little nuances that pleasantly enrich the overall picture and create tension.
The result is music that flows warmly in the solar plexus and gives jazz a very modern touch, delicate and sensitive and carefully acting, inspiring the head cinema to individual soundtracks, in short, music for all occasions.
Wolfgang Giese
Dates
Benjamin Lackner
Benjamin Lackner Quintet
24.01.2025
Kulturraffinerie K714
Monheim am Rhein
Deutschland
