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Manuel Mengis
From the onset my aim was to find create a sound, which challenges each of us and which provides a balance between control and caprice, structure and instinct. Kitsch is a part of our music just as much as brutal force. The music is not reduced to one particular style, but depending on the venue and mood a variety of styles "combined or deconstructed" will be used in one composition. Motifs and themes will take the listener through a continuously changing soundscape; these will be highlighted and covered up, joined together and taken apart, they will disappear only to resurface in a later part. That way all pieces are connected. Musicians are not simply virtuoso soloists, who are occasionally unleashed to shine, but they have character, whose contributions have a clear connection to the emotional and formal aspects of the compositions. Although many parts follow the firm structure of the composition, every musician has the possibility to break out from his part, thus continuously challenging his fellow musicians to decide whether to go along, let go, or expand into new territory. That way the music verges on the unpredictable, but always follows the basic shape of the compositional structure, as if a new story was being retold again and again, but different.
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LE POT: Hera
by Glenn Astarita
This Swiss ensemble maximizes the pristine sonic qualities of a church --St. Romain in Raron --that combines a pure, organic soundstage with the complexities of highly expressive jazz and improvisational overtures, including impressionistic interpretations of choice works by famed British classical composer Benjamin Britten. There are occasions when the ensemble projects a thought-provoking ideology of an avant-garde spin on Miles Davis' Bitches Brew jazz fusion era, which of course was groundbreaking yet quite unconventional for its time. Every ...
read moreLe Pot: Hera
by Vincenzo Roggero
Secondo capitolo di una trilogia iniziata con She e che si concluderà con l'episodio intitolato Zede, Hera ci presenta un quartetto svizzero molto interessante per visione musicale e approccio interpretativo. Registrata presso la Burgkirche St. Romanus nel villaggio svizzero di Raron, la musica interagisce con la severa architettura della cinquecentesca chiesa. Ne assorbe semplicità, purezza di forme e spiritualità rimandandole all'ascoltatore attraverso un fitto intreccio di richiami a musiche altre (e a Benjamin Britten in modo particolare), di invenzioni melodiche, ...
read moreManuel Mengis Gruppe 6: Dulcet Crush
by Glenn Astarita
With his third group-led album for hatOLOGY, trumpeter Manuel Mengis projects multiple vistas within a progressive-jazz framework, spanning fusion, jazz-rock and experimental aspirations. Yet the key aspect lies with his ability to design a distinct band-centric stylization, as each subsequent release yields an extension of previously exercised routes. Mengis also abides by a polytonal outlook, resplendent with assertively orchestrated guitar, horns and rhythmic contrasts.
There's a lot going on under the proverbial hood, where Mengis and the dual ...
read moreManuel Mengis Gruppe 6: Dulcet Crush
by Mark Corroto
Experiencing the music of trumpeter Manuel Mengis, a standard list of musicians and musical styles heard in his music comes to mind. This is a disservice, because his methodology is quite original.
Still the temptation to explain his third disc for hatOLOGY following The Pond (2008) and Into the Barn (2005) in terms of others sounds, persists. His band has had a small change in personnel, Reto Suhner steps into the alto saxophone and clarinet seat, but the core remains ...
read moreManuel Mengis: Freedom First, History Later
by Frederick Bernas
Jazz is insurmountable. Hundreds of CDs are reviewed by All About Jazz every year, but how many names are recognized? It is endlessly fascinating, yet frustrating--while reveling in the evidence that such a high quantity of music exists, the realization dawns that there aren't enough hours in the day to hear it all. Each name represents an artistic vision, a creative statement, a person or group with something to say, communicating with and through jazz. It's impossible for ...
read moreManuel Mengis Gruppe 6: The Pond
by Chris May
Listening to Swiss trumpeter Manuel Mengis' cross-genre Gruppe 6 is to hear an intoxicating melange of musics, from bop and free-bop to skronk and groove, in which the spirit of bassist/bandleader Charles Mingus' jazz workshop lives again, recalibrated by geography and history.
Mengis' music is less intense in its passions--less tortured and confrontational--than Mingus,' and more discursive and elliptical, but the same little-big band aesthetic, with its fractured through-arrangements, rooted in the past but nudging at the future, ...
read moreManuel Mengis Gruppe 6: Into The Barn
by Glenn Astarita
Swiss-reared trumpeter/composer Manuel Mengis is sort of a newbie on the Euro-jazz scene. On this debut effort, he surfaces--through his music and scope of ideas--as a free spirit, although his music merely skirts the free zone during certain movements.
Leading his Swiss sextet, Mengis surfaces as a remarkably mature 33 year-old who embraces a balls-to-the-wall musical outlook. These four lengthy works aim to excite and prod the mind's eye. Founded upon a gritty jazz-rock anchor, thanks to a ...
read moreManuel Mengis Gruppe 6 - Dulcet Crush (Hatology)
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Master of a Small House
Swiss mountain guide by day, trumpeter by calling, Manuel Mengis is a model of the new millennial musician. His highly personal jazz is a polyglot of influences, mixing in rock, funk, pop and even the occasional bit of pap. Gruppe 6, his working band, represents a similarly deep wellspring of musical resources. Saxophonists Reto Suhner and Roland von Fle can play cocktail balladry with the same facility as Aylerian scrawls. Lionel Friedli's percussion philosophy fractures into a prismatic array of ...
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New Releases From Hat Hut Records: Dave Douglas, Manuel Mengis Gruppe 6, Ran Blake/Anthony Braxton and more
Source:
Michael Ricci
Dave Douglas' Tiny Bell Trio: Constellations
Dave Douglas - trumpet Brad Shepik - guitar Jim Black - drums
Constellations is a new set of songs written and arranged for the trio. It was recorded in mid tour, and so has a different, perhaps more live, character... Many thanks go to Brad and Jim for their dedication and commitment to the music. They are two of the finest listeners around, and in our three years as a ...
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Trumpeter Manuel Mengis Interviewed at AAJ
Source:
All About Jazz
Jazz is insurmountable. Hundreds of CDs are reviewed by All About Jazz every year, but how many names are recognized? It is endlessly fascinating, yet frustrating--while reveling in the evidence that such a high quantity of music exists, the realization dawns that there aren't enough hours in the day to hear it all. Each artist represents a vision, a creative statement, a person or group with something to say, communicating with and through jazz. It's impossible for anyone to do ...
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Manuel Mengis : Into The Barn on Hatology 627
Source:
All About Jazz
Manuel Mengis Gruppe 6 · Into The Barn Manuel Mengis–trumpet, Achim Escher–alto saxophone Christoph Erb–tenor saxophone, Flo Stoffner–electric quitar Marcel Stalder–electric bass and Linonel Friedli–drums New release on Hatology 627
Born in the Swiss canton Wallis in 1972, trumpeter and part-time mountain guide Mengis probably is virtually unknown to most people. It thus comesas a surprise that his first release is for a label that has not pledgeditself to promote and encourage ...
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