About the album
For jazz pianist Marc von Roon, these recordings are a dream come true. They represent the culmination of almost five decades of exploring, playing, performing, contemplating, constructing, deconstructing, searching, researching, reflecting, engaging in conversations, jamming, sense-making, traveling, instructing, sharing, dreaming and being. For a long time he desired to allow himself full immersion in this genuine kind of improvisational exploration with its invitation to let go of habitual patterns and grooves and to resonate more deeply with the music and her deep generative source: a source that expresses itself in silence and sound so infinitely mysterious. Recording this music has been an invitation to improvise on a tightrope, letting go of preconceived designed and trained artistic conceptualizations and has been a journey to the edge of technique and control with a strong refusal to repeat himself and a keen interest in taking risk and explore unknown territory. As an underlying framework he chose to use the printed keyboard scores of Johann Sebastian Bach. The result is beautiful album in which the listener can discover how to creatively connect the pre-composed orchestrated with the improvised 'Jazz' of life to which we are continuously being invited: a 'Jazz' that encompasses and integrates both the sorrowful blues and the joyful swing of Jazz and life.
Für den Jazz Pianisten Marc van Roon stellen diese Aufnahme die Erfüllung eines lang gehegten Traumes dar, denn sie dokumentiert das Ergebnis einer fast 50-jährigen Reise des Erforschens, Spielens, Konzertierens, der Betrachtung, des Konstruierens, Dekonstruierens, Suchens und Recherchierens, der Reflektion, darüber Sprechens, des Jammens, Sinn-Herstellens, Reisens, Belehrens, Teilens, Träumens und des Seins. Lange Zeit hatte van Roon den Wunsch völlig in diese unverfälschte Art der erforschenden Improvisation einzutauchen und die gewohnten Patterns und Grooves gehen zu lassen und mehr in Einklang mit der Musik und ihrer generativen Kraft zu treten; eine Kraft, die sich in der Stille bemerkbar macht und deren Sound so unendlich mysteriös ist.
Diese Musik aufzunehmen gleicht dem Balanceakt auf dem Drahtseil, die vorgefassten Entwürfe und antrainierte, künstlerische Konzeptualisierungen ziehen zu lassen, war eine Reise an die Grenzen der Technik und Kontrolle. Der starke Wunsch gegen Wiederholungen anzukämpfen und das Verlangen Risiken einzugehen und das Unbekannte zu erforschen, sollten die Eckpfeiler von 'Inventions & Variations' werden, für das er zusätzlich die Klavier-Partituren von Johann Sebastian Bach als Gerüst verwendete. Herausgekommen ist ein wunderschönes Album, das den Hörer dazu einlädt, zu entdecken, wie man auf kreative Art und Weise vorkomponierte Kunstmusik mit dem lebendigen und improvisierten Jazz verbinden kann: ein Jazz der beides beinhaltet - sorgenvollen Blues und freudebringenden Swing. Wie das Leben.
Press
(...) One of the best productions of this month. (...)
Music Emotion, 01-4-2017
Marc van Roon with this special album.
Jazzism, 17-3-2017
Pianist Marc van Roon (1967) has certainly earned his spurs, after he graduated in 1991 at the Hague Conservatory.
Jazz bulletin, 01-3-2017
More than seventy minutes of piano music are nothing but a huge reflection on Bach's work through the eyes of a twenty-first-century jazz pianist with a wide musical interest.
De Pianist, 24-2-2017
Jazz pianist Marc van Roon is doing himself and the public a gift in his fiftieth year of life. In this album are the three centuries between then and now bridged clever: Inventions & variations.
Dagblad de Limburger, 10-2-2017
... Intellectual and handmade at the highest level, spontaneous and emotional...
Ohrenschmauch, 28-1-2017
An album that is beautifuly recorded and should get the attention internationally.
Jazzenzo, 16-1-2017
...No music of the head, but a high emotional factor of spontaneity, combined with passion and joy of playing music...
musikansich, 13-1-2017
Classical listeners will appreciate the thoughtful treatment of Bach's themes, and jazz listeners with open ears will enjoy the skillful work of an accomplished modern pianist in this inventive set of new music.
HR Audio, 03-1-2017
...A whole world opens to the listener, in which the classical Bach only occurs in fragments.
Jazzthing, 01-11-2016
... This creates a self-centered, improvised jazz, which is constructed and deconstructed, who seeks and dreams and leaves room for own discoveries.
Medienhaus Bauer
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