DESCRIPTION:
Max Frankl (git), Nils Wogram (tb), Domenic Landolf (ts, bcl), Pablo Held (p), Matthias Pichler (b), Silvio Morger (dr)

Max Frankl calls his album „Home“. It is an avowal to what is musically important to him. After his newcomer orientation and learning phase, which brought him together with teachers like Wolfgang Muthspiel and Kurt Rosenwinkel and during which he proved himself on tour with the European Jazz Orchestra 2009, it is the first album in which he now presents himself as band leader of such international format, a challenging project. With this album, he fulfills a dream, putting together a sextet of luminaries, each of whom already stands for their own story. He courageously takes a risk.

The experiment works, as Max Frankl presents music that is personal enough to formulate his language as composer, arranger and soloist and at the same time gives enough freedom to animate his colleagues to their own statement. It also works on account of the special combination of characteristics of sounds they contribute. All the participants are committed melodists and storytellers, whose modernity does not get lost in the abstraction.

This compliments Max Frankl’s colorful and dramatically lyrical presentation. Neither sharp contrasts nor garish effects are a part of his approach. His songs develop, dynamics arise from the flow, and even in loud passages he maintains a tendency towards tenderness. It is improvised music with great respect for the synthesis of sounds, falling back on established archetypes no more than necessary but just enough to hold the form.

„Home“ thus establishes a standpoint. Max Frankl positions his musical home in a moderate center of the contemporary improvised modern. He accredits himself with a fine sense for sound, passing ideas of the harmonic interweaving of stringent lines on to the ensemble. His excellent band acknowledges these with clear virtuosity, far-reaching creativity and empathetic musical interplay. And so the music grows until it becomes something which everyone it touches feels good about. A home.