Wolfgang Haffner Acoustic Shapes live at 40th Jazzweek Burghausen 2009

Hubert Nuss, piano

Christian Diener, bass
Wolfgang Haffner, drums

recorded live at Wackerhalle, Burghausen, Germany, March 20, 2009

1. Silent Way
2. Faithless
3. Shapes
4. Star (for Joe Zawinul)
5. Some Other Time
6. Nightsong
7. 24 Hours (for Esbjörn)
8. Somewhere Else

Well known through his work with such international stars as Chaka Khan, Pat Metheny, Cassandra Wilson, Lalo Schifrin, Bill Evans, Mike Stern, the Brecker Brothers, and Chuck Loeb’s fusion band “Metro”, Wolfgang Haffner has become one of the few German musicians who has succeeded in making the breakthrough onto the international scene. With his ACT CD Shapes in May 2006, Haffner reached another milestone in his own creative career. Critics praised the album as “addictive”, “ingenious and sophisticated”, and ”a meld of catchy melodies, clever electronics, classic rock, new jazz, and a cool, hip sound aesthetics”. An intoxicatingly exciting tour followed in which, among others, the NDR (North-German Radio) Big Band, and the Jazz Baltica Ensemble were integrated into the musical scheme (see also the posts here on this blog one year ago…).
Nils Landgren was involved in Shapes as trombonist and co-producer, and so it only made sense that Haffner go back to this project, since it was supposed to be a tour for and with Landgren. At any rate, he went back to the roots: “Originally I wrote Shapes for piano trio, but the time called for electronics. Now I want to go back to my original starting point.” So Shapes is transposed into Acoustic Shapes, which, by the way, is much more than a simple reduction.