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Johannes Wallmann

Johannes Wallmann’s fourth album as a leader features his NYC-based Brasstet, an innovative ensemble comprised of three brass (Ralph Alessi, trumpet; Josh Roseman, trombone; and Marcus Rojas, tuba) together with a rhythm section of bassist Sean Conly, drummer Fred Kennedy, and Wallmann on piano (Wallmann’s working piano trio for much of the past decade). The group’s instrumentation is nimble enough to allow for highly interactive ensemble play (such as the New Orleans-inspired collective improvisation of “The Sweet Minute”), yet rich enough in timbre to suggest a much larger brass choir (“Looms in the Mist”).

Following two prior suites composed for the Brasstet, the “America Suite” (2001), which explored the tradition of American Spirituals, and the “Imperial Suite” (2003), a more aggressively avant-garde anti-war statement (both of which were commissioned by the North River Music, a series of new music presented at Renee Weiler Recital Hall in NYC), Wallmann’s third suite for the Brasstet was inspired by his impressions of coastal communities. “The Coasts” was composed shortly after Wallmann, who grew up on Canada’s Vancouver Island moved back to the West Coast (San Francisco Bay Area) after 15 years on the East Coast (Boston and New York).

Coastal life, both rural and urban, is shaped by rhythms imposed by the ebb and flow of the oceans and by the human connection to the oceans as a source of food, transportation, employment, adventure, and identity. In a world of rising oceans and drying land, Wallmann’s music finds inspiration in elements both timeless and current. While the personnel of the Brasstet has changed over the years, the group has always featured some of the finest creative improvisers in New York. The current edition draws heavily on some of the downtown jazz scene’s most accomplished performers, who navigate even the more complex odd-meter compositions of “The Coasts” with ease and playfulness.

Born in Münster, Germany, Wallmann grew up on Canada's Vancouver Island, where he studied classical piano and guitar. Deciding to study and pursue a career in music, Wallmann moved first to Boston (Berklee College of Music) and then New York City (New York University, Ph.D. in jazz studies, ’10). In New York, he performed or recorded with the Dennis Mitcheltree Quartet, the Harlem Spiritual Ensemble, the American Music Group, jazz tubaist Howard Johnson, drummers Jeff Hirshfield, Danny Gottlieb, and Tim Horner, bassists Jeff Andrews and Martin Wind, saxophonists Gary Bartz, Seamus Blake, and Pete Yellin, trumpeter Ingrid Jensen, operatic tenor Dr. Francois Clemmons, the Billings Symphony Orchestra, and Canto-pop star Faye Wong. A two-time Canada Council artist grant recipient, Wallmann has also toured extensively throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.

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Album Review

Precarious Towers: Ten Stories

Read "Ten Stories" reviewed by Jack Bowers


Precarious Towers is a Midwestern-based quintet whose second recording, Ten Stories, is as bare-bones an album as one could imagine: a plain CD (without name or artwork) resting in a pale-blue jacket (no tray or protective sleeve) that includes a list of songs, composers and personnel plus recording details. That's it. From a reviewer's point of view, however, such cosmetic details are irrelevant, as the only component that matters is the music itself. Judged solely on that ...

11
Album Review

Johannes Wallmann: Precarious Towers

Read "Precarious Towers" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Pianist Johannes Wallman set himself up with a hard act to follow when he released 2021's Elegy For an Undiscovered Species (Shifting Paradigm) an ambitious set of the leader's distinctive compositions played by an all-star quintet and string orchestra. It is a jazz with strings that leans to a spirited jazz side--cerebral and approachable at the same time. Precarious Towers, Wallmann's 2022 offering, finds the pianist bringing in a different quintet, one which proves itself as adept as ...

Album Review

Johannes Wallmann: Elegy for an Undiscovered Species

Read "Elegy for an Undiscovered  Species" reviewed by Angelo Leonardi


Poco noto in Italia, Johannes Wallmann è un 47enne pianista e compositore nato in Germania ma cresciuto in Canada e formatosi musicalmente negli Stati Uniti (al Berklee College of Music di Boston e alla New York University). Vive a New York dal 1995 e ha pubblicato nove CD compreso il presente dove affianca un'orchestra d'archi a un quintetto jazz con la trombettista Ingrid Jensen e il sassofonista Dayna Stephens. È forse il suo lavoro più ambizioso, realizzato ...

1
Album Review

Johannes Wallmann: Elegy For An Undiscovered Species

Read "Elegy For An Undiscovered  Species" reviewed by Friedrich Kunzmann


Supported by the Artemis supergroup members drummer Allison Miller and trumpeter Ingrid Jensen as well as by long-time collaborator Dayna Stephens and bassist Nick Moran, Johannes Wallmann can count himself lucky to have a celebrity packed core band behind him to present six new cuts fresh off the pianist's pen. In addition to the celebrity lineup, a sumptuous string orchestra (15-strong) adds harmonic depth and ornamental brushstrokes along the way, expanding crescendoing build-ups with further dynamic width and embellishing soloistic ...

10
Album Review

Johannes Wallmann: Elegy For An Undiscovered Species

Read "Elegy For An Undiscovered  Species" reviewed by Dan McClenaghan


Pianist Johannes Wallmann's Elegy For An Undiscovered Species opens with the eleven minute title tune, a musical protest against the Anthropocene Extinction. That extinction is happening right now. Human activity—human predominance of the planet—is its cause. This opener does have an apocalyptic feel, with a dark piano trio intro and a dark strings backdrop seeping into the mix, followed by tenor sax (Dayna Stephens) and trumpet (Ingrid Jensen) solos. Of Dayna Stephens' sound: if Paul Desmond's ...

3
Album Review

Johannes Wallmann: Love Wins

Read "Love Wins" reviewed by Dan Bilawsky


The depths to which some factions of “civil" society will sink in order to deny others their equal rights, respect, and acknowledgement is downright depressing. But the height to which love can rise and overcome is heartening, to say the least. Pianist Johannes Wallmann is better acquainted with both of those aforementioned truths than your average citizen. When he moved to Wisconsin in 2012, he had been in a legally-recognized same-sex marriage for five years. Neither Canada ...

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Primary Instrument

Piano

Willing to teach

Advanced only

Credentials/Background

Director of Jazz Studies & Assistant Professor of Music at California State University, East Bay, 2007-present Adjunct Instructor at the The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music , 2003 - 2007 (Courses taught: Jazz Ear Training, Jazz Theory, Theory & Performance) Adjunct Instructor at New York University, 2002 - 2007 Music Theory Program (Aural Comprehension Curriculum Coordinator, 2005-2007; Courses taught: Aural Comprehension, Music Theory) Adjunct Instructor at New York University, 1996 - 2007, Jazz Program (Courses taught: Jazz Piano Class, Jazz Piano Lessons, Jazz Ensembles) Faculty at Greenwich House Music School, NY, 2000-2001 Graduate Assistant, Purchase College, State University of New York, 1995 Private Instruction since 1995

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Ten Stories

Shifting Paradigm Records
2023

buy

Precarious Towers

Shifting Paradigm Records
2022

buy

Golden Rule

Dengor Music
2022

buy

Elegy for an...

Shifting Paradigm Records
2021

buy

Love Wins

Fresh Sound Records
2018

buy

The Coasts

Self Produced
2010

buy

Rachel

From: Golden Rule
By Johannes Wallmann

Bling Tone

From: Golden Rule
By Johannes Wallmann

Via Dance

From: Golden Rule
By Johannes Wallmann

Sarah

From: Golden Rule
By Johannes Wallmann

Omicron

From: Golden Rule
By Johannes Wallmann

Waltz For Tai

From: Golden Rule
By Johannes Wallmann

Genghis Kant

From: Golden Rule
By Johannes Wallmann

Mosinee Mayhem

From: Union
By Johannes Wallmann

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