Cologne-based trumpeter and composer Frederik Köster is constantly on the lookout for innovation and reinvention in Jazz. At the Dottendorfer Jazznacht this week he also showed that he had found excellent contributors to his vision in young musicians Jannis Sicker, Calvin Lennig and Dominik Mahnig. Be prepared to experience an evening of excellently improvised fresh jazz music – but don’t expect to be able to take it away to enjoy at home. Dark Matter, as the band are called, do not do ‘takeaways’
When asked what Jazz meant to him in a recent interview with ON Zum Sonntag in Osnabrück Frederik Köster answered that a playground was a good analogy. “Always containing improvisation that mixes old with new. Always looking to play the same pieces a little differently each night live”. With such a vision I would think it must be challenging to be playing in the band alongside him in that case. Also challenging for the listener. Reassuringly there was sheet music on the stage but – as Köster pointed out during the concert in Dottendorf – There isn’t much music of his latest Dark Matter project available anywhere. No CD’s/downloads. So what happens when you actually‘nail’ improvisational music for good and always by having a particular ‘take’ placed firmly on record so to speak? Will there ever be a CD? It’s certainly the stuff of dreams for bootleggers in years past. But does that make Köster a jazzified ‘son’ of The Grateful Dead? For die-hard fans only? The plan, Köster goes on to explain, is to present to the live audience music that exists nowhere else but at that concert in that moment.
Is the audience being treated as party to something special, or test pilots for future finished product? Genüß or Guineapig? The evening’s opener being titled simply ‘Prologue’ further amplifies that nothing is writ in stone: No clues to tempo, melody or style for itself or the rest of the evening’s programme.
At one point in the first set Köster introduces a composition inspired by Bob Dylan. Finally a reference point for the music? He asks who is familiar with Dylan’s‘Darkness at the break of noon’? and the reference point instantly disappears. There were no die-hard Dylanites present to point out this was the first line of ‘It’s alright Ma (I’m only bleeding)’ and no clue that I could discern from the music, although we were rewarded by one of the evening’s best trumpet solos.
The composition named after the band ‘Dark Matter’ summed up the band itself. Going in various directions as the flow took them. Stop/start melodies. Musical puzzles. Thankfully the musicical calibre of Köster with Jannis Sicker on guitar, Dominik Mahnig on drums and Calvin Lennig’s contrabass kept things musically on the edge without crashing over the abyss. An evening for Jazzfans with an appreciation for invention and for musicians with nerves of steel.
NEXT UP AT DOTTENDORFER JAZZNACHT: 27 March – Heavytones – Germany’s most celebrated backing band has appeared 2500 times as Stefan Raab’s studio band. Kylie Mynogue, Adele and Tom Jones are just a selection of superstars the Band has appeared with live. Should be a good one!