Deutscher Jazz Preis … 2025 Nominees ~ The Free Jazz Collective

Camila Nebbia and Angelica Sanchez – in another land, another dream (Relative Pitch, 2024)

in another land, another dream is a duo album that Nebbia recorded
with pianist Angelica Sanchez from late last year on Relative Pitch.
Recorded live at the small studio/performance space near the Gowanus Canal
in Brooklyn in 2023, the album is an intimate affair that shows the two
musicians seamlessly connecting at a rather deep musical level. Sanchez’s playing
is refined, her sometimes minimal lyricism is complimented by Nebbia’s
bold, expressive tone. The opening track, ‘In a Land Before,’ begins with spacious voicings from Sanchez and spiraling lines from Nebbia. It grabs the listener right away. The track moves from such lyrical forays into deep
exploration during its 9-minute lifespan, switching without pause from scratching
of the strings inside the piano and breathy sounds from the sax to an
uptempo melodic explosions. The six tracks that comprise the album brim with intensity.

Camila Nebbia and John Hughes – The Myth of Aether (s/r, 2024)

Another gem from Nebbia that showcases her vibrant tone, this time with
Hamburg based bassist John Hughes. Recorded live at Berlin’s Kühlspot – an
artist atelier and performance space in the creative Weissensee district of
Berlin – the album is an intimate affair that really highlights both the
saxophonist’s and bassist’s versatility. Opening track ‘desenmarañando rapido’ (unraveling
quickly), does kind of what it says in the title, but a lot more too. It
begins with Nebbia’s robust playing that quickly … umm … unravels into an atonal
melody, complimented by Hughes’ expressive pizzicato lines. It really is, however, less of an unravelling than a game of high speed chase, with the two
musicians’ keenly intertwined lines and astute listening at play. For a
contrast, ‘Tectonic Shift’ begins with high distorted harmonics on both
instruments, and again, astute interplay, but now in a more exploratory mode.
The title track takes its time to materialize and their extended
techniques lead the two to a fragmented finale.

Camila Nebbia, Dietrich Eichmann, John Hughes, Jeff Arnal

– Chrononaux (Generate Records, 2024)

Chrononaux finds saxophonist Nebbia and bassist Hughes within a larger
ensemble, bringing in pianist Dietrich Eichmann and drummer Jeff Arnal. The international mix of American, German and Argentinian musicians comes together in an
explosive, yet melodic, combination. Again, Nebbia’s full, hearty saxophone
playing compliments Hughes’ strong, precise phrasings. Eichmann adds
another powerful voice to the mix, with angular and musical phrases, as
sharp and incisive as thickly harmonic. Arnal brings an energy to the stewing
brew that is just as decisive and pugnacious as is required. The digital
album contains two long tracks. The first track, at 25 minutes, begins by
knocking your socks off and the second, clocking in at an hour and three
minutes, doesn’t really allow you to put them back on. So, just be still and
let the music whisk you away.

Camila Nebbia / Leo Genovese / Alfred Vogel – Eyes to the Sun (Boomslang
Records, 2024)

This trio featuring Nebbia sees her with fellow Argentinian
Leo Genovese on piano and Austrain Alfred Vogel on drums. The recording was
born from a meeting of the saxophonist and drummer in Berlin and led eventually to the addition of
Genovese. Known for his work with Esperanza Spalding and the late Wayne
Shorter, Genovese also seems quite at ease in the free jazz setting as well,
adding a rich layer of harmonic and rhythmic drive to Nebbia’s ever inspired lines and Vogel’s textured and insistent drumming. The
track ‘Glint’ is a perfect example of the group’s dynamism. At times quite
melodic, starting with a subdued and expressive introduction from the
saxophone, abstracted but lush chordal movement from the piano and rhythmic
suggestions from an intense snare drum, the piece grows denser and denser through impressionistic rhythmic and
melodic lines. It is almost hard to believe that this is all
free improvisation, as the musicians all seem quite focused on creating a sturdy
musical structure. ‘Glow,’ the track that follows immediately begins with
Vogel creating a foundational rhythm, though a quite agitated one, over
which Nebbia and Genovese – who has now switched to the saxophone – duet, or
maybe duel. The vying tones become quite forceful, before finding ways to accommodate each other. The title of the album, and all the track titles, refer
to an experience that Vogel had after being diagnosed with cancer in the
weeks following the recording session in Buenos Aires. His battle and recovery lead to him seeing life in a new light. A truly stunning recording.

Ingrid Laubrock – Purposing the Air (Pyroclastic, 2025)

Brooklyn based, German saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock has been quite busy in
recent years (and in the years prior), releasing a very diverse selection of
recordings, from the high octane free-jazz trio with drummer Tom Rainey and
bassist Brandon Lopez (No es la Playa, Intakt, 2023), to the dark hued
electronics/saxophone duo with Cecilia Lopez on Maromas (Relative Pitch,
2024) , to the avant garde construction of Monochromes (Intakt, 2023) with saxophonist Jon
Irabagon, harpist Zeena Parkins and Rainey, and many more. On Purposing the
Air, the saxophonist takes a much different approach: she is the composer,
not the performer. Built around the human voice, Laubrock takes the
poetry of New York poet and educator Erica Hunt,
and sets the work Mood Librarian – a poem in koan to 60 miniatures. It’s a
compelling work that draws the listener in close, and one that will
require much deep listening thereafter. The recording features vocalists Fay
Victor, Sara Serpa, Theo Bleckmann, and Rachel Calloway along with cellist
Mariel Roberts, pianist Matt Mitchell, guitarist Ben Monder and violinst
Ari Streisfeld.

<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://ingrid-laubrock.bandcamp.com/album/purposing-the-air">Purposing The Air by Ingrid Laubrock (Pyroclastic Records)</a>

Luise Volkmann – Rites de Passage (nWog Records, 2023)

Luise Volkmann is a young saxophonist from Colonge, Germany who has also been
quite active in recent years, building a reputation for both her playing and
composing. Rites of Passage is not her latest recording, that would
seem to be the self-released Punk Jazz Sessions (2025), but it is an early major statement from the artist. Recorded over the
course of several years with different musicians and in different settings,
the work is offered as a socio-political statement as much as a musical one.
According to the liner notes, it is “music of resistance and transition. It
contrasts the life in which we settle with a utopian space that has yet to
be established.” For brevity sake, let’s stick to the sound, which this album
is indeed about. Volkmann, here, is more composer than player, taking
the rich array of tones from orchestral instruments and mixing them with
electronic processing and sculpting. The result is a tonal journey that
freely mixes genre and mood, composition and improvisation.

Bill Frisell, Kit Downes and Andrew Cyrille – Breaking The Shell (Red
Hook Records, 2024)

British pianist and organist Kit Downes has called Berlin his home for the
past several years and can be found sometimes playing the various church
organs that dot the city when he’s not tending to his international
musical and teaching career. He can also be found playing pipe organ on this
compelling and oft meditative release with guitarist Bill Frisell and drummer
Andrew Cyrille. It begins with the whistle of the organ of St. Luke in the
Fields New York church in the West Village on ‘May 4th,’ in which there are
incidental buzzings from Frisell’s primed and ready guitar and one can feel the mood brewing. When Frisell finally joins, he is in an atonal mode, his fragile, shimmering
cobweb notes enmeshing Downes’ wheezing tones and Cyrille’s light rhythmic tappings. By the next track, ‘Untitled 23,’ things are in motion. The three
are in free exchange, Downes’ adoption a more focused sound. The following,
‘Kasei Valles,’ finds the trio in a much different mode, the organ is a
vessel of sound, growling and groaning, sort of a building terror. Only
towards the ends do we hear some guitar making its way into the space. A
tune like ‘El,’ on the other hand, seems to dip into the abstract Americana that
Frisell was exploring on his early 90’s albums like

Have a Little Faith. Throughout, Cyrille shows how a sensitive touch on the drums, brushes,
gentle snare, can offer so much to the music.

Felix Henkelhausen Quintet – The Excruciating Pain of Boredom (self, 2025)

Young people these days, seriously, how can you be bored? The entire world
of knowledge, that

Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

that we once only dreamed of, now exists in everyone’s pocket. We just don’t quite
use it as well as Ford Prefect and Arthur Dent. So, this boredom that Henkelhausen speaks of in the title of his new, live recording must be
somewhat tongue-in-cheek. Just listen to the first few tracks of the
album, there is simply no time to be bored, it cooks from the get-go.
Henkelhausen’s previous album, Deranged Particles (Fun in the Church, 2024) is a nominee for album of the year and if this new release is any indicator, it stands a good chance of winning. Bringing his compositions
to life are saxophonists Wanja Slavin and Uli Kempendorff, drummer Leif
Berger and pianist Valentin Gerhardus – who also provides an essential component with live-processing. The musicianship is top-notch and the
energy is as well. Perhaps the title’s meaning can be inferred through what
the bassist/composer writes in the notes to the album: “The compositions
have their own distinct character and over the course of this nearly
60-minute album, paint a rather dark picture that strongly correlates with
my emotional state during that time.” Though I cannot speak to how Henkel hausen was feeling at the time, I don’t think it is darkness that is
communicated by the knotty melodic statements and the rich
rhythmic textures, rather it is a depth and mature completeness in the work.

Aki Takase & Daniel Erdmann – Ellington (enja, 2024)

Duke
Ellington’s importance and influence on jazz is beyond reproach. From
composition to performing to shaping the history of the music, there is a
deep well for the duo of Berlin-based, Japanese pianist Aki Takase and Paris-based, German saxophonist Daniel Erdmann to draw from for their explorations. From reverent readings to explosive expropriations, the pair
treat the compositions with tasteful reverence and invigorating reinvention. For example, the haunting simplicity of ‘African Flower’ is retained, Takase providing an
effectively minimal comping for Erdmann’s evocatively melodic solo, and then
into her own gently unfolding solo. While on ‘Caravan,’ the two hit on the
tension in the melody expertly and then launch into fiery improvised passages. There is a lot between these gems, like the great ‘Don’t
Get Around Much Anymore’ and the quaint swing of ‘It’s Bad to be Forgotten.’ The album ends with a heartfelt rendition of an homage to the maestro,
namely Charles Mingus’ ‘Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love,’ leaving a simple,
single tear of bittersweet joy on cheek. Ellington is a nominee for album of the year and another good choice.

Bex Burch – there is only love and fear (International Anthem, 2023)

Londoner Bex Burch, who, as I understand it, lived and worked in Berlin for
a time, released there is only live and fear in 2023 on
International Anthem. The album features a roster of the label’s artists,
including woodwindist Rob Frye, drummer Dan Bitney, trumpeter Ben LaMar Gay,
bassist Anna Butterss and violinist Macie Stewart. The album is a compelling
exploration of rhytmic textures and minimalist melodies that defy easy
categorization. Drawing from avant-garde jazz, folk, and minimalism, the
album’s intimate moments sit comfortably alongside more expansive passages,
making for a generally relaxed listening experience along with rewarding jolts of
energy.

Continued Reading…

Some other nominees this year include albums and artists that have been
reviewed over the past year on these pages. Here are some links…

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