News: December 2007
Posted December 03, 2007“De l’autre côté (from the other side) is the French title of “The Edge of Heaven”, the new movie by Turkish/German director Fatih Akin, already awarded at the last Berlin Film Festival. The movie is off to an excellent start in France. Much of the music is represented by Métisse Music, mostly through the film score music composed by Shantel a/k/a Stephan Hantel: artist, dj, author/composer and the owner of his own label, Essay Recordings, whose publishing catalogue we signed for France recently.
Huong Thanh might take a little bit of practice to pronounce, but the effort it worth it. This gracious lady from Vietnam follows in the footsteps of a family of artists which was obliged to leave their home country for political reasons and is now a resident of France. She is getting a lot of attention here for her latest album on German label ACT called “Fragile Beauty”, recorded with Nguyên Lê, a jazz guitarist and producer who is also of Vietnamese origin, himself born and raised in France. The music is a subtle mixture of traditional Vietnamese singing and very delicately arranged music, on the verge between tradition and contemporary jazz. The CD Fragile Beauty has been selected by French world music magazines Trad Mag and Mondomix, also the website, as their special choice, and by Jazz Magazine as one of the records of the month for December, 2007.
After the “choc” of the year award of jazz monthly Jazzman, Yaron Herman trio CD has been selected by the other major jazz imprint in France, Jazz Magazine, as “Disque d’Emoi” for the year. The Herman/Brewer/Cleaver trio, which just finished an extensive tour with a triumphant Bordeaux concert, has been selected to play the first showcase at the Bremen JazzAhead convention and festival in April 2008, to be followed by a club tour.
Also part of that Jazz Mag selection of the 30 best CD releases of the year is young German pianist Michael Wollny, whose “Hexentanz” on Act obviously convinced the very French jury.
Act trio E.S.T. are getting glorious reviews for their “live” CD from Hamburg, just out via Harmonia Mundi’s distribution. Having had the rare privilege to see the band play live in a very small club in Hamburg recently for the launch of this release, we can testify that their musicianship, verve and inventiveness, after many years at the top of sales and concert attendances in the jazz field, are intense, but also incredibly fresh and spontaneous. This is a brilliant group, and their “live” release is a very different listening experience from the studio recordings and much worth checking out.