Already as a teenager, Julian Wasserfuhr was considered the greatest German trumpet talent since Till Brönner. Together with his brother Roman on the piano they form an inseparable team. Their (spiritual) kinship enhances the way they played together. The closeness of the two brothers lends their music an easily flowing and relaxed character. Whether with the trumpet or flugelhorn, Julian is not one of those musicians who constantly strives to go higher, faster, further. With his warm sound he creates the atmospheric space for the music. His brother Roman, with his accentuated radiant piano, makes no less a contribution to the band's fresh and yet mature and airy sound. Their highly lauded debut "Remember Chet", which they recorded as teenagers, launched the two musicians into the German jazz stratosphere. It didn't take long before there were playing with greats such as Nils Landgren, Lars Danielsson and Wolfgang Haffner, all the while developing their style more and more into their own characteristic, melodic-atmospheric "Wasserfuhr Sound": "I like the courage these two have to keep things simple. You have to be brave to do that. The admirable thing about it is that it is the opposite of show-off jazz," summarises actor Matthias Brandt.

Already as a teenager, Julian Wasserfuhr was considered the greatest German trumpet talent since Till Brönner. Together with his brother Roman on the piano they form an inseparable team. Their (spiritual) kinship enhances the way they played together. The closeness of the two brothers lends their music an easily flowing and relaxed character. Whether with the trumpet or flugelhorn, Julian is not one of those musicians who constantly strives to go higher, faster, further. With his warm sound he creates the atmospheric space for the music. His brother Roman, with his accentuated radiant piano, makes no less a contribution to the band's fresh and yet mature and airy sound. Their highly lauded debut "Remember Chet", which they recorded as teenagers, launched the two musicians into the German jazz stratosphere. It didn't take long before there were playing with greats such as Nils Landgren, Lars Danielsson and Wolfgang Haffner, all the while developing their style more and more into their own characteristic, melodic-atmospheric "Wasserfuhr Sound": "I like the courage these two have to keep things simple. You have to be brave to do that. The admirable thing about it is that it is the opposite of show-off jazz," summarises actor Matthias Brandt.

Paul Heller is a WDR Big Band saxophonist and the artistic director of his own concert series "Next Level Jazz" in Cologne.

Young, classically trained string players with big, wide open ears have greatly enriched Dutch improvised music in the past years. One of them is the German cellist Jörg Brinkmann (1976), who has studied at the Arnhem conservatory. Just like the members of the ZAPP! string quartet, whom he frequently plays with, he get his inspiration from anywhere; for him the ‘jazz’ label is also too limiting. Brinkmann is equally capable of making essential contributions to pop bands, theatre orchestras or chamber music ensembles. Building on the technical innovations of improvising jazz musicians, he can deploy his cello as a (rhythm) guitar, or as a bass that lays down funk accents or swings in four-four time. When he colors the sound of his instrument with electronics, it’s done in a subtle and tasteful way. In his playing and his compositions a perfect fusion takes place of structure and personal variations, of cleanly bowed lyricism and lively rhythms, in which he doesn’t shy away from unusual time signatures either.
His musical character is faithfully expressed in his own trio with pianist Oliver Maas and percussionist Dirk-Peter Kölsch, with whom he recorded the album Ha! for ACT. In addition, he’s worked with Martin Fondse’s Starvinsky Orkestar, Michiel Braam’s Bik Bent Braam and many other adventurous jazz soloists.