Bach Jazz - Bach Jazz (Digipak CD)

Facts Bach Jazz - Gatefold Digisleeve

Bach and jazz. Two incredibly well-known concepts. Yet when Bach Jazz blends them together, a new, strangely organic whole emerges.

Inspired by Jan Johansson and George Harrison as much as by Miles Davis and Nils Frahm, the trio has developed a personal sound on their debut album. Suggestive, human, playful and intimate. The sound is handled by engineer Åke Linton, internationally acclaimed for, among other things, his many years with E.S.T.

The journey toward Bach Jazz may have begun back in the '90s, with a teenager's CD find at the radio shop: "Bach Greatest Hits." Or during an organ lesson in 2013, with a sudden impulse to combine two favorite musical phenomena. Since the group began working together in spring 2022, their roughly ten concerts have generated strong enthusiasm across Sweden.

Pianist Emil Carlsson Rinstad says: "For centuries, researchers have devoted their lives to the astonishing puzzle behind J. S. Bach's music. The complexity, the versatility and the beauty. The eternal melodies. The harmony, at once enigmatically flexible and mathematically crystal clear. We are no experts on Bach at all. We are fans, like millions of others. Enamored with the compositions, but at home in other, equally fascinating traditions: jazz, where openness to the moment can awaken energies no one could plan in advance. And pop, where ideas are boiled down until the core becomes obvious to (almost) everyone."

There are plenty of incredible, virtuosically accurate Bach recordings, and we should all be glad of that. This album contains no purist interpretations. No comprehensive overview. The song selection was made by feel, but the preparation was meticulous. We have cut forms, thinned out voices, and invented chord progressions and accompaniment patterns to make pieces that suit our expression. Irreverent? Perhaps. But done with deep love and respect. In different directions. Bach Jazz is a tribute, driven by the desire to let worlds meet and reflect each other. To see what happens then.

Bach Jazz is: Emil Carlsson Rinstad, piano (and vocals on Agnus Dei), trained in both improvisation and church music. He has released several pop albums under his own name. He has toured with other artists in the USA, Japan, Uganda and Germany, among other places.

Magnus Bergström, double bass, is in high demand on the Swedish jazz scene, including with the Simon Westman Trio, the Christian Jormin Trio, trumpeter and vocalist Anders Boson and choral giant Gunnar Eriksson. Internationally, he often plays with the Mikael Godée & Eve Beuvens Quartet.

Ola Winkler is, without exaggeration, one of the country's foremost drummers, following collaborations with, among others, Anna Ternheim, Ane Brun, Jonathan Johansson, Lisa Ekdahl and the Andreas Hourdakis Trio.