Bach Jazz - Bach Jazz (Black Vinyl LP)

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

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

The journey toward Bach Jazz may have begun 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 sparked strong enthusiasm across Sweden.

Pianist Emil Carlsson Rinstad says: "For centuries, scholars 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 that is at once enigmatically flexible and mathematically crystal clear. We are not 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 countless incredible, virtuosically correct Bach recordings, and we should all be glad of that. This record contains no textbook-faithful interpretations. No comprehensive picture. The song selection was made by feel, but the preparation was meticulous. We have cut forms, stripped voices, and invented chord cycles and comping patterns to create pieces that suit our expression. Irreverent? Perhaps. But done with deep love and respect. Pulling 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.