Pocket Rhapsody II by Frank Woeste

Frank Woeste

Pocket Rhapsody II

Format: CD
Label: ACT music
UPC: 0614427991720
Catnr: ACT 99172
Release date: 30 October 2020
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Label
ACT music

UPC
0614427991720

Catalogue number
ACT 99172

Release date
30 October 2020

"A pleasantly accessible album."

Jazzism, 04-12-2020

Album

Artist(s)

Composer(s)

Press

About the album

When Frank Woeste’s “Pocket Rhapsody” was released in 2016, it earned him a welldeserved place in the limelight. Here was a pianist with a “style at once powerful, elegant, rousing and outlandish” (ARTE Metropolis). The album also re-connected him with the German jazz audience, for although Woeste has made his home since 1999 in Paris, and is well known on the French scene for his own projects and his work alongside stars like Youn Sun Nah and Ibrahim Maalouf, he was actually born in Hanover.

Woeste is living proof of the power of combining cultures. In him we find a technical grounding from German classical music co-existing with a passion for American jazz and the spirit of his adoptive country: “I am strongly influenced by the way jazz has always been viewed in France, as music that blends well with other forms – world music, French music... There is freedom here to take the jazz language, to adapt it, to find one’s own way,” he reflects.

“Pocket Rhapsody”. The album title encapsulates a rhapsodic, free and personal approach to music, which Woeste has taken considerably further in “Pocket Rhapsody II”. There is a whole cornucopia of timbres, a big emotional range, compositions encompassing different aesthetics including pop and rock, but always with a clear sense of where we are. We hear more of the beguiling sounds that Woeste can conjure from the Fender Rhodes and various synthesizers, and there’s a joyous surprise: a choir of children. The other players in the line-up also signal a new direction. Whereas the first album was an ‘American affair’ with guitarist Ben Monder and drummer Justin Brown, the follow-up features Woeste’s French band, which also toured the project. The Dutch trumpeter Eric Vloeimans makes a wonderfully lyrical contribution.

Whereas both “Mirage” and the title track from the first album re-appear on “Pocket Rhapsody II”, Woeste has transformed them so totally, they are scarcely recognizable – which was his intention. Woeste has also played “Wintersong” and “Clair Obscur” before in his duet series “Libretto Dialogues”. The three-part “Tryptique”, written for the album, has a magical way of growing and evolving. The whole album has completeness and coherence despite its stylistic openness. In “Pocket Rhapsody II”, Frank Woeste has found again what the Irish Times saw in the first album: “the fresh and invigorating sound of a pianist daring to be different.”

Artist(s)

Frank Woeste (piano)

Frank Woeste was born 1976 in Hannover-Germany. Trained as a classical pianist and organist. he discovered in the age of 16 his love for jazz during a year in the USA as an exchange student. Back in Germany he received additional training in jazz improvisation at the Conservatory in Bremen and continued his studies from 1997 until 2001 at the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris, where he graduated with the "Diplome fin d'études superieures". Frank won several prizes at national and international competitions for jazz and improvised music, including the first prize at "Jazz a Mennecy" (France / 98) and the first prize at " Concours Charles Trenet" in St. Maur (France / 99 ). In 2003 he won the 2nd prize at the Montreux International Solo Piano Competition . In 2004 he participates in the IAJE-conference in New York and won the 3rd prize at the International Jazz Soloists Competition in Monaco. Also the Frank Woeste TRIO won the 2nd prize at the Jazz Hoeillaart Intern. Competition in Belgium and at the European Jazz Competition in Getxo, Spain and is nominated as one of the Piano Trio Revelation 2005 at Juan les Pins Festival.
At present he is working as a freelancing musician in Paris . He has toured Europe, Asia (JVC jazzfestival Seoul, Tong Yeong Festival) and the USA with a number of jazz artists including performances with the National Jazz Orchestra Germany, Mederic Collignon, Youn Sun Nah, Peter Weniger, Markus Stockhausen, Steffen Schorn, Olivier Ker Ourio, Nelson Veras Manu Codija, Christohe Wallemme, etc..
He has been recording for several other labels than Challenge including, Sony-Music, Mons Records, ARTPURecords, Baltic Records, Amalgammes, Montreux Festival Records. and others.

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Eric Vloeimans (trumpet)

Eric Vloeimans (Huizen, 1963) is an improvising trumpeter and composer who regards the term ‘jazz’ as too limiting to describe his music. His work is characterized by melodic and lyrical power, and a distinctive, individual sound that is called velvety or whispering in the more subdued pieces.
From 2006/2007 Eric Vloeimans has been active with two much-praised formations: the chamber jazz trio Fugimundi (Anton Goudsmit guitar, Harmen Fraanje piano) and the electric band Gatecrash, in which rock and funk elements can be traced (Jeroen van Vliet keyboards, Gulli Gudmundsson bass, Jasper van Hulten drums). With the latter group, he employs electronic effects in his trumpet playing for the first time.
In addition, he continues to develop other projects, such as the band Oliver’s Cinema with accordion player Tuur Florizoone and cellist Jörg Brinkmann (CD available from August 2013, and a US tour in October 2014)) , and a duo with pianist Florian Weber, with a CD release : Live at the Concertgebouw in 2011.
His broad range of interests has led Vloeimans to collaborate with artists from other musical worlds. In the pop music area, these include Fay Lovsky, Doe Maar, Spinvis, Jan Akkerman and trumpeter Kyteman (Colin Benders). Where world music is concerned, Vloeimans was involved in projects with flamenco guitarist Eric Vaarzon Morel, Latin pianist Ramon Valle, and the fado-inspired Pessoa of Fernando Lameirinhas.
Vloeimans has performed as a soloist with classical ensembles such as the Matangi Quartet, the Calefax Reed Quintet, the Metropole Orchestra, the Gelderland Orchestra, the Limburg Symphony Orchestra, the Holland Baroque Society, the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra.
2011 saw the premiere of his first trumpet concerto, Evensong, with the Limburg Symphony Orchestra, orchestrated by Martin Fondse, and recorded for CD with the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra.

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