One of the most individual of all altoists and sopranoists (and one of the few in the 1950s who did not sound like a cousin of Charlie Parker), the cool-toned Lee Konitz has always had a strong musical curiosity that has led him to consistently take chances and stretch himself, usually quite successfully. Early on he studied clarinet, switched to alto and played with Jerry Wald. Konitz gained some attention for his solos with Claude Thornhill’s Orchestra (1947). He began studying with Lennie Tristano who had a big influence on his conception and approach to improvising. Konitz was with Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool Nonet during their one gig and their Capitol recordings (1948-50) and recorded with Lennie Tristano’s innovative sextet (1949) including the first two free improvisations ever documented.. He almost retired from music in the early ‘60s but re-emerged a few years later. His recordings have ranged from cool bop to thoughtful free improvisations and his Milestone set of Duets (1967) is a classic. In the late ‘70s Konitz led a notable Nonet and in 1992 he won the prestigious Jazzpar Prize. He kept a busy release schedule throughout the ‘90s and dabbled in the world of classical with 2000’s French Impressionist Music from the Turn of the Twentieth Century.

Walter Lang is the somewhat different pianist, to whom it pays to listen more closely. As a musician and a person, because both are an experience with a special quality, and because both fit extremely well together more often than you find in others. Born in SchwäbischGmünd, Württemberg in 1961 and a graduate of the Berklee College Of Music in Boston, one of the best keyboard addresses seen from the regions of Germany, he plays in the same way he thinks and speaks: warm-hearted, clever, structured, funny, lyrical and unconventional. And that about which Lang thinks and speaks, his very special way of approaching his profession and his life in the same way, have long since made him into one of the great hopes of an endangered genre.Because the man has remained himself and not become a clone: No show-off or plagiarist, and one shies away from using the often-tested schemes of the colleagues. But he is not someone who wants to reinvent jazz by force either. He doesn’t need that given his limitless range. You only need to search for the many vacant corners, use the no-man’s land, dare to take a step into little frequented, unpopular regions. Walter Lang does this, far from the safeside, out of ready-made beds with the danger that he will not please at first.