 Peter Kowald Gesellschaft/ort e.V. |
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ort
Luisenstraße 116
42103 Wuppertal
Achim Kaufmann piano
Frank Gratkowski clarinets and alto saxophone
Wilbert de Joode double bass
In early 2002, Achim Kaufmann, Frank Gratkowski and Wilbert de Joode first got together
as a trio at a small venue in Amsterdam.
Since then, the three musicians have been touring and performing internationally on a
regular basis, while constantly developing, deepening and enriching their musical rapport
now documented on five CDs so far: kwast on Konnex; unearth on
nuscope; palaë and oblengths on Leo Records; and geäder on gligg records.
The trio’s music has been completely improvised from the outset, created in the moment.
There have never been any rehearsals prior to concerts, premeditated structures or
concepts – a fact that frequently flummoxes listeners, critics or even fellow musicians, as
the three often manage to evoke the impression that their music could indeed be adhering
to compositional presets.
Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de Joode combine the transparency of early 21st century chamber
music – silence, the moving into and out of noise regions, textural juxtapositions, the
relics of almost tonal harmony surging up then evaporating just as quickly– with the
energy, the rhythmic momentum and unpredictability of jazz and other rhythmically more
aggressive musics.