KAZDA:
Jan Kazda (bass guitar) Jens Thomas (piano, voice) Kurt Billker (drums)
INDIGO STRING QUARTET:
Heike Haushalter (violin) Petra Stalz (violin) Monika Malek (viola) Gesa Hangen (cello)
New line-up, new sound, familiar band name: Kazda. Bassist and composer Jan Kazda is one of the most versatile musicians in a jazz scene that is considered one of the most creative in Europe. The band's latest release, Short Tales from the Neighbourhood, is the follower of four Kazda albums that featured a funky fusion sound of rap, vocals, and horns. It was recorded after numerous tours and live concerts which even led the band to China. At first sight, the group is a piano trio plus a string quartet, but once you listen to the music they appear as a unified whole where the strings feel like a single instrument. Jan Kazda, who invented the line-up and wrote the music, perceives his material as well-structured songs and vivid short tales (see album title). For the musicians, including the bassist, that translates as: create an atmosphere; tell a story; play cantabile. The perfect man for that job is pianist Jens Thomas, whose own compositions are atmospheric, visual, and narrative, too. Under the slogan PianoVoice, he uses his piano as a voice and his voice as an instrument. On drums, the ideal candidate was Kurt Billker. Only a handful of drummers match Billker's sensitivity, his conveyance, or his capability to step far back and still hold the reins tightly. The same applies to his string quartet, Indigo. Kazda wanted exactly this one and no other. A body of sound like that needs to be structured and is definitely worth writing for - what a challenge for any composer! As a writer, Kazda arms this album with a framework for improvisation - not for self-presentation, however, but for the benefit of the song. Adjacent genres like rock, jazz, waltz, and tango also shine through, though not clearly. For example, La Boca evokes a tangoesque atmosphere without being an authentic piece of tango. Kazda provides the basic outlines of a story, leaving enough room for the listener to fill in the missing pieces.