Podcast

Master drummer Jochen Rueckert is a personal hero of mine. I’ve been checking him out since my teenage years, when I discovered Achim Kaufmann’s “Weave”, Paul Heller’s “Kaleidoskop” & Jochen’s own “Introduction”, three massively influential records for me. He is an outstanding drummer and a great guy who always speaks his mind, and this conversation is no exception. We talked about him coming up in the Cologne scene and then making his move to NY in the late 90s, winding up playing with Kurt Rosenwinkel & Marc Copland, his clarity, dynamics, what he expects from bandleaders and fellow musicians, self doubt and much more.

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I still remember when I first heard Kurt Rosenwinkel’s epic album “The Next Step”. In the early 2000s I was visiting my guitar friend Riaz Khabirpour in his apartment in Amsterdam. When he went out to practice, I stayed in his place, going through his record collection. I can still tap into the feeling I had when hearing Kurt’s intro to “Zhivago” for the first time. I was mesmerized by his otherworldly, fluid and big sound. Lines and harmonies like I hadn’t heard before quite like that. Since then, “The Next Step” remained an important album to me and made me check out as much of Kurt’s music as I could.

In our talk, we get in to his relationship with Ben Street, Jeff Ballard & Mark Turner, memories from his steady gig at Smalls, thinking of other instruments while playing the guitar, the development of his sound, learning other people’s music, playing Paul Motian’s EBBB… and then he went over to the piano and demonstrated the process behind his song “Cycle 5” and much more.

I’m grateful to Kurt for all the inspiration and for everything he shared so candidly in our conversation.

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What a pleasure it was to talk to composer/arranger/pianist/accordionist Gil Goldstein! I’ve been in awe of his work with Michael Brecker, Milton Nascimento, Jim Hall, Wallace Roney and of course his own music (check out his album “Under Rouseau’s Moon”). Furthermore, his book “Jazz Composer’s Companion” was a great help to me, especially because of the interviews that Gil himself conducted with some of my biggest heroes – he’s basically an investigator himself 😉 Gil and me share a deep affinity for Gil Evans, so naturally I had to ask him about the process of his late mentor. These accounts are a nice counterpart to my conversation with Maria Schneider with whom I also talked about Gil Evans’ music. Enjoy the two of us hanging/nerding out.

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