Bleu live at Jazzfest Berlin 2010

Lorenz Raab trumpet
Ali Angerer tuba, e-dulcimer
Rainer Deixler drums, percussion

recorded live at Georg-Neumann-Saal, JazzInstituteBerlin
November 5, 2010

1. Greez from Vienna/ Uhudler/ Behind the milkyway/ Going far with atala/ Zamba/ Nice furniture with blue silk/ Thinking
2. Shell I shell I/ Players/ aLo
3. Warm Eyes

Blue, the primal colour of jazz, is cast in a new, fascinating shade by the Austrian trumpeter Lorenz Raab. His very own shade of blue represents the fathomless vastness and transparency of air and water, of the sky and the horizon, also depicting long urban nights, smoke of cigarettes, electricity. And then there is also that lucent blue at twilight where imagination and reality converge.

In Raab’s Trio Bleu tradition and modernity interchange their inherited functions; Instruments such as the dulcimer und the tuba – usually evoking rather rural associations get reshuffled to represent virtual volatility or the hectic of today, while the trumpet gently, indeed melancholically floats overhead. Conch shells promise closeness to nature, though, and a harmonium contributes spiritual depth. In Bleu, the different streams of the European jazz-experience are an outpour into a musical delta that in virtue of its ramifications and its abundance of musical species is just about overwhelming. Bleu is an experiment with an open outcome in which intuition gains the victory over reason. With this band the Austrian musician advances to become one of the most creative voices among European jazz-trumpeters.