The Swiss pianist Stefan Aeby is one of the most in-demand young Swiss jazz musicians. He has already appeared in the Intakt festival at the Vortex in Sarah Buechi’s band and also as part of Christoph Irniger’s Pilgrim. With his band-mates and good friends André Pousaz (bass) and Michi Stulz (drums) he now presents his own trio.

The album by the Stefan Aeby Trio which has just been released, entitled To the Light, gets under the skin of the listener with the poetic mood which dominates. The trio maintains a core vision of keeping a pared-down sound, which leaves the players time and space to react to each other, and affords the opportunity to just bask in the sound.

Florian Keller writes in the liner notes: “To build their multi-layered sound architecture, these three music fanatics dispense with the weight of the monumental. Instead they use their strong sense of atmosphere to create a soundtrack for the poetry of the quietly unobtrusive.”

CD-recommendation: Stefan Aeby Trio. To the Light. Intakt CD 274

Aki Takase and Rudi Mahall share a special affinity and enjoy working together. As music critic Ulrich Olshausen wrote about their duo CD Evergreen: “They share a common knowledge of the whole of jazz history and their refined craft, but these are arguably not the most important things. Where Takase and Mahall find a completely unified approach is the way they jointly keep the ever-present urge to break for freedom in check. They also have a very specific and shared sense of humour, a shared outlook that, maybe, life should be approached as seriously, and yet also as lightly as possible. Their take on this striking collection of evergreens moves through airy amusement, the carefully judged rapport of their sensitive give and take, intellectual juggling, and even some bizarre dance theatre as they conquer aesthetic heights.”

The CD is a stroll through many styles, from stride piano in You Took Advantage of Me to free-jazz impressions in You and the Night and the Music or the surprisingly pensive paraphrase of It’s Only a Paper Moon. “This is vital chamber music,” wrote Ulrich Olshausen of the respected Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “infinitely rich and full of fantasy, featuring the complex and miraculous sound of the best bass clarinettist in the world.”

CD-recommendation: Aki Takase, Rudi Mahall. Evergreen. Intakt CD 152