Schmidt | Weniger | Henze | Bussenius – Schmidt Happens!

Schmidt Happens!

Artists: Andreas Schmidt (p), Peter Weninger (ts, ss), Andreas Henze (b), Kai Bussenius (dr)

Schmidt Happens! And that almost every week at the Berlin jazz club A-Trane. The pianist Andreas Schmidt has played over 500 concerts here within the last 10 years. Musicians like David Liebman, Jimmy Halperin, Judy Niemack, Mark Murphy, Lee Konitz, Jasper van’t Hof, Til Brönner, Paul Brody are just an overview of the many guests who have joined his series of concerts „Andreas Schmidt & Friends“.

Andreas Henze and Kai Bussenius belong to the group of Monday night session regulars in A-Trane. The trio’s concerts were often inspired by Peter Weniger’s contribution on the saxophone.

“It was like a meeting of old friends” Andreas Schmidt recounts, “Andreas, Kai and I had been playing together as a trio for ages, and, in the meantime, we’d become really good friends. When Peter then joined us, it was a kind of musical game following the motto “Do you know this? No, show me. Great! Does that fit here? Yes! Let’s see where it leads to. Oh, now everything is different than we thought it would be. But why not do it like this? And so forth.”

For the recording session in A-Trane, Andreas Schmidt chose compositions out of his repertoire that had an open and improvisational approach to them in order to enable this musical meeting of soul-mates to move freely. The incredibly well attuned trio drive the soloist on to energetic heights; although, the group’s main focus is “We are always solo and we’re never solo!” This famous quote by Wayne Shorter finds its relevance here because the rhythm section’s open approach to playing overrides the old fashioned hiearchy of “soloist/accompanist”. In addition to their obvious joy of playing, it is above all the refreshing themes that make this album an unforgettable listening experience. Once again, European jazz shows itself from its best side!