VEIN Trio already has a reputation as “one of Europe’s most exciting ensembles”, according to John Fordham, of The Guardian. With Symphonic Bop, recorded with the acclaimed Norrbotten Big Band Orchestra under artistic director Joakim Milder earlier this year, and the ensemble’s thirteenth album, VEIN expands its range beyond the crystalline precision and intimacy of the small ensemble to the awesome power and depth of an internationally acclaimed jazz orchestra. It’s like seeing your favourite movie on a bigger screen.

What makes this work stand out among works for jazz orchestra is that, though it uses the power of a jazz orchestra to the full, VEIN’s small-group heritage and identity ensure that the delicacy and texture of Individual instrumental colours and lines are never obscured by the full weight of the orchestra. VEIN’s pianist, Michael Arbenz, who arranged and orchestrated all six tracks, explains: “The big band is an extension or an orchestration of the trio, which adds all the colours of a Big Band without losing the flexibility and the interaction of the trio.” The atmosphere of the classical orchestra can also be heard through the arrangements: “The inspiration for the arrangements comes more from the symphonic tradition than the big band,” says Michael Arbenz. The result is an album with the rhythmical subtlety, the melodic invention, and the sensational ensemble playing of VEIN’s trio albums, but with the heft and depth of an orchestra. Truly the best of both worlds.

The three permanent members of VEIN Trio all contributed new pieces on the album, and the outstanding feature of Symphonic Bop is its diversity of style and mood. Florian Arbenz’s composition, “Boarding the Beat”, a fifteen-minute suite, explores the colours of the jazz orchestra in exquisite depth and detail. A delicate introduction, showcasing the orchestra’s subtler textures, yields to passages of luminous brass harmonies, underscored by Robert Noldmark’s sinuous tenor saxophone melodies, and the indignant soprano of Håkan Broström, while Mats Garberg’s trilling flute insinuates its way irresistibly through the instrumental lines. The orchestral colours are almost Mahlerian, but this is balanced by a jazz ensemble’s rhythmic tension, and the throb of the beat that the piece announces.

Bassist Thomas Lähns’ composition Willi’s Pool turns the serious mood into on its head with a mind-warping fantasy of outrageous glissandi and distorted resonance. Lähns’ own bass, plucked and bowed, combines with the virtuosic trombones of Andrea Andreoli and Arvid Ingberg to conjure a surreal and highly inventive piece that challenges the limits of the acoustic sound-world, yet does so with humour and poise.

Fast Lane, by Florian Arbenz, is a trio piece, opening with piano and drums engaged in a fast pursuit of each other, followed swiftly by the bass, in a stream of lightning interactions so assured the individual instruments blur into a haze of chords. It’s the jazz trio tradition, but accelerated to warp speed, harmonic lines blurred in an exhilarating haze.

Michael Arbenz’ tune Under Construction is a masterclass in how the rapid-fire trio dynamic can set a whole orchestra alight. Rapid chord changes, syncopation and slick orchestration build a dynamic platform for shredding solos from first bass, then piano. Finally, Arvid Ingberg monsters a trombone solo that builds and builds, a move that concludes with an erie, plaintive statement on soprano sax.

Michael Arbenz then changes the dynamic completely with Passacaglia, an atmospheric chamber piece in which gossamer piano chords are joined by first delicate bass, then saxophone and wind, becoming an instrumental chorus of transcendent, contemplative tranquility.

The last tune, Florian Arbenz’s Groove Conductor, ironically shows how much you can fit into a ten-minute big band piece. Touches of funk in the driving brass melodies, and a bassline, with Petter Olofsson’s through-the-floor electric bass solo, that would honour a drum n’ bass club night. Flirting with the harmonies throughout is the atmospherically grimy tone of Danne Johansson’s trumpet solo, complementing the dark yet sophisticated mood.

This is a deceptively simple title for an album that, in six compositions, covers avant-garde jazz to contemporary chamber music, and the ground in between, offering an important statement of jazz and its centrality in contemporary musical culture.

MICHAEL ARBENZ – piano

A classically-trained pianist and self-taught jazzperformer, Michael Arbenz brings the passionate curiosity of his self-directed investigations in jazz to the rigour of his classical performance practice. After studying classical piano in Basel, Michael Arbenz’s international classical career has included collaborations with Pierre Boulez, Heinz Holliger, Jürg Wyttenbach and the Swiss new music ensemble Contrechamps. Discovering a love of jazz as a child, his self-guided exploration of both the techniques of improvisation and the history of jazz was fresh and personal, and his approach to improvisation is multilayered rather than linear, using the piano as an orchestra. His jazz influences are very eclectic and include major jazz pianists across the history of the music, as well as colours and ideas from classical music. He has performed widely with the acclaimed VEIN trio, and has collaborated with international stars including Greg Osby, Glenn Ferris, Dave Liebman, Marc Johnson, Wolfgang Puschnig, and Andy Sheppard.
Michael Arbenz also works as a composer and arranger and teaches in the Jazz Department at the University of Lucerne.

THOMAS LÄHNS – bass Double bass player Thomas Lähns is a highly distinguished performer of both classical music and jazz. He combines the sophisticated bowing technique of the classical orchestra with the spontaneity of the jazz ensemble. His classical performances include appearances with Heinz Holliger and Peter Eötvös at the Salzburger Festspiele and Schleswig Holstein Music Festival, and regular classical solo performances across Europe and South America. He is one of the few players to perform Hans Werner Henze’s Concerto for Double Bass.

As a teenager his first musical ambition was to play electric bass, inspired by a love of Iron Maiden – until he fell in love with jazz and learnt the double bass. He studied classical music in Basel with Wolfgang Güttler and Botond Kostyak and took masterclasses with Marc Dresser. He is much in demand on the jazz scene, playing in over 100 jazz gigs a year. As co-leader of VEIN Trio, he makes guest appearances with artists including Christoph Stiefel, Johannes Mössinger and Kolsimcha. His approach is in the tradition of Scott LaFaro, Richard Davis, Miroslav Vitous and especially the great exponents of jazz bowing such as Slam Stewart and Major Holley.

FLORIAN ARBENZ – drums One of Europe’s most versatile and accomplished drummers, Florian Arbenz has an unsurpassed jazz pedigree with the acclaimed Swiss trio VEIN. He got to know jazz through acquaintances such as Kirk Lightsey and Famadou Don Moye, and studied with Ed Thigpen and Steve Smith. He is also a classically trained percussionist, with extensive international orchestral experience, and has performed with Peter Eötvös, György Kurtag and Christoph von Dohnanyi, among others. As a student, he spent six months at Cuba’s University of the Arts, and has maintained an active interest in the international scene ever since, incorporating elements from Asian technique, as well as Afro-Cuban, in his own playing. Florian follows the careers of cutting-edge practitioners such as Chris Dave, and Eric Harland very closely, and hones his own technique with a similarly innovative focus.

An ECM recording artist, bandleader and composer, Andy Sheppard is one of Europe’s leading saxophonists and one of a very few British musicians to have made a significant impact on the international jazz scene, playing and writing for settings from solo to big band and chamber orchestra. Sheppard has composed over 350 works that incorporate a strong and characteristic sense of lyricism alongside a very personal use of rhythms from Asia, Africa and South America.

Sheppard took up the saxophone at 19, highly motivated after encountering the music of John Coltrane, and three weeks after getting his first instrument was playing in public with the Bristol-based quartet Sphere. After a period in Paris where he worked with groups including performance art band Urban Sax, he returned to the UK in the mid-80’s recording the album “Andy Sheppard” for Antilles/Island, with Steve Swallow as producer, the beginning of a long musical association that continues to this day. Since then Sheppard has recorded for labels including Blue Note, Verve, Label Bleu and Provocateur.

Sheppard has been invited to compose for large and small ensembles in the areas of jazz and contemporary classical music. His big band writing includes work with the renowned UMO Orchestra (Finland), the Bergen Big Band (Norway) – initially for a joint commission from Cheltenham and Vossa Festivals – Voice of the North and Jambone (UK). Most recently in 2012, Sheppard was commissioned to write a new Big Band Suite for the Bergen Big Band, this brand new work entitled Bump 5250 was performed during the prestigious NattJazz Festival (Norway) in 2013. He wrote music for a collaboration with the classical saxophonist John Harle, and composed View from the Pyramids, a concerto for saxophone and piano for the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, which premiered at the 1998 Salisbury Festival with Joanna MacGregor as piano soloist. Other significant commissions include a solo performance piece for saxophone and electronics from the Maison de la Culture in Amiens which subsequently turned into his Nocturnal Tourist CD; Nothing moved but the wind – a work for the Kintamarni Saxophone Quartet; Strange Episode – a piece for tape oboe and percussion for New Noise; the multi-disciplinary Cityscapes – a collaboration with Joanna McGregor et al for the City of London Festival; Glossolalia – a choral work with saxophone, guitar and percussion soloists commissioned by Bigger Sky and the Norfolk & Norwich Festival with premiere in Norwich Cathedral and new big band and vocal work for the northern youth big band Jambone with youth choir, which premiered at the Gateshead International festival in 2012. Curiously, Sheppard has been commissioned to write music to commemorate two feats of UK engineering.

The first was a collaboration with renowned Northumbrian piper Kathryn Tickell to celebrate the opening of the Gateshead Millennium Bridge. This landmark commission resulted in Music for a New Crossing, written for the Northen Sinfonia, pipes and saxophones, with premiere played live on the spectacular setting of the bridge itself. The second saw Andy commissioned by Brunel 200 to write a piece to mark the 200th anniversary of the birth of Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the engineer of the Clifton Suspension Bridge in Bristol. For this work, entitled The Living Bridge, Andy composed a fanfare using prepared electronics incorporating the sounds of the bridge and utilizing the talents of 200 local saxophonists in homage to his early work subsequently formed the basis of Saxophone Massive – a series of large-scale celebratory performances performed in the UK and abroad by saxophone choirs made up of players of all ages and abilities that can be tailored to suit indoor or outdoor performance venues. Saxophone Massive has played all over Europe and as part of the BT River of Music, the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad programme supported by the National Lottery and Paul Hamlyn Foundation, in July 2012 there was a special version of saxophone Massive at Somerset House in London. The Man Who Had All the Luck which ran at the Young Vic; dance (his trio Inclassificable devised the music for the award winning dance piece Modern Living, choreographed by Jonathan Lunn); radio and TV. His TV credits include original music commissioned by BBC’s Omnibus for Ice dances Torvill and Dean; the Oscar nominated Channel 4 film, Syrup directed by Paul Unwin; a documentary series about Peter Sellers.

Sheppard has been described as a serial collaborator, playing recording and developing new music with artists as varied as Brazilian percussionist Nana Vasconcelos, Indian violinist L.Shankar, English folk musician Kathryn Tickell, contemporary classical composer-performers John Harle and Joanna MacGregor, singer songwriter John Martyn, and a myriad of leading jazz figures, including the rare hat-trick of three of the seminal composers in contemporary Jazz – Carla Bley, George Russell and the late Gil Evans.

The first album for ECM with his own project Movements in Colour recorded in 2008 draws upon established and more recent relationships. The saxophonist plays regularly in duos with jazz guitarist John Parricelli and tabla player Kuljit Bhamra, and both are also members of his quartet in Dancing Man & Woman. It was while touring as a guest soloist with Ketil Bjørnstad’s band that Sheppard eventually got to play with Eivind Aarset – “the perfect choice for the sound world that I was after.” UK tours with Bjørnstad also brought Sheppard and Arild Andersen together, and while writing the music for Movements in Colour album, Sheppard reports that he was “hearing melodies on acoustic bass and knew that Arild’s sound and lyricism would make them sing as well as provide essential energy.”

Sheppard’s current performing priority is Andy Sheppard Quartet/Surrounded by Sea, his third ECM album is a strongly atmospheric recording.

Extending the range of his widely-praised Trio Libero (ECM) project in 2012 with Michel Benita and Seb Rochford, Andy Sheppard adds Eivind Aarset (who made significant contributions to 2008’s Movements In Colour) to the band. With Aarset’s ambient drones and electronic textures as a backdrop, Sheppard and co seem to have even more space to explore. The music embraced includes new compositions, open improvisations, an Elvis Costello tune, and the Gaelic traditional ballad “Aoidh, Na Dean Cadal Idir”.

A classically-trained pianist and self-taught jazzperformer, Michael Arbenz brings the passionate curiosity of his self-directed investigations in jazz to the rigour of his classical performance practice. After studying classical piano in Basel, Michael Arbenz’s international classical career has included collaborations with Pierre Boulez, Heinz Holliger, Jürg Wyttenbach and the Swiss new music ensemble Contrechamps. Discovering a love of jazz as a child, his self-guided exploration of both the techniques of improvisation and the history of jazz was fresh and personal, and his approach to improvisation is multilayered rather than linear, using the piano as an orchestra. His jazz influences are very eclectic and include major jazz pianists across the history of the music, as well as colours and ideas from classical music. He has performed widely with the acclaimed VEIN trio, and has collaborated with international stars including Greg Osby, Glenn Ferris, Dave Liebman, Marc Johnson, Wolfgang Puschnig, and Andy Sheppard.

Michael Arbenz also works as a composer and arranger and teaches in the Jazz Department at the University of Lucerne.