Andy Manndorff – Dirt & Soil

Dirt & Soil

Artists: Andy Manndorff (guit), Clemens Wenger (p, keys), Stomu Takeishi (b), Ted Poor (dr)

Since the release of his trio CD “You break it – you own it” (2008), the audience and critics have discovered a “new” Andy Manndorff. “A paradigm change in the Manndorffian oeuvre” was stated: he wraps “his originality in lyrical poise and has found a gentle way to transpose his substance” (Der Standard). He shows “devotion to steadfast beauty without giving up his fundamental improvisation-background” (Die Presse). A “thoughtful, absorbing, new approach” (Jazzwise Magazine, UK). On his new album “Dirt & Soil”, Andy Manndorff is continuing down this path.
Manndorff translates two archetypical landscapes into musical language. “Dirt” is raw earth energy: dust from country roads; grime from the big city; the ferocity of art and wanton sex appeal – attraction and repulsion at the same time. “Soil” by contrast represents cultivated land: a field, the groomed garden.
And so ecstasy and furiously restrained beauty stand across each other – a duality that can be compared to a “Dionysian/Apollonian” like polarity. In Andy Manndorff’s musical language, these two apparently contradictory energies are united into powerful music. In the compositions, the melody is in the foreground, and the quartet sensitively creates the tension between the composed and freely improvised parts.
Andy Manndorff presents his music with a top-class quartet: Clemens Wenger (piano, keyboards, live electronics) belongs to the small circle of independent-minded musicians from the young Austrian jazz scene. Stomu Takeishi (electric bass) is an old companion of Manndorff’s from New York and probably has the most awkward musical approach of all bass players. Ted Poor is in the meantime one of the most in demand drummers from the New York scene and cooperates with Stomu Takeishi on many projects.