David Wildi – guitar
Stephan Stahel – piano
Stephan Athanas – bass
Pius Baschnagel – drums
Willy Kotoun – percussion
Monika Wildi – backing vocals
Liner Notes
Once upon a time in the USA – jazz musicians held quite some grudges against the well earning rockstars and decided to change their rather miserable situation by applying a simple saying: “If you can’t fight them, join them!” And they did. The musical invention then called rock-jazz and later fusion actually changed the situation for many of them. This style, created in the early 70ties, prevailed for a longer time and prompted a whole lot of young musicians to accept it as part of jazz. Many young instrumentalists broader view have since began to mix styles, incorporating rock rhythms, jazz changes and modal solos in their musical concept – and a new bread of jazz musicians has consequently emerged and established itself.
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Guitarist David Wildi belongs into that category. A musician with said broad view on things, not wanting to apply any boundaries between what is called straight ahead jazz, fusion or even rock. For him, like for so many of his stateside colleagues, spontaneity and creativity have become the key words for his work. Being aware of the fact, that in music rather little remains to be newly invented, he puts quality of performance and material before innovation and succeeds in writing truly valuable compositions, plays them with impeccable taste and sensitive mastery of his instrument. The album reveals a great variety of melodically catching lines, interesting and logical changes as well as a most fitting lineout of many rhythms we currently are confronted with.
Agreeably, this music demands a projection full of warmth, strong sense of rhythm, extensive musical understanding and cannot be performed by just anyone. Especially the guitar, recognized world wide in a myriad of different forms, truly demands special attention by the player and demands an equally special approach to not resemble too much to the performances of other competitors. David Wildi has done just that, by carefully and painstakingly applying a personal sound, musical concept as well as admirable technical skills. He definitely does not belong into the vast majority of loud and noisy guitarists; his handling of the instrument can easily be termed “soft, velvety and insinuating”. Which does not mean the man plays without power; it means that he has learned his lessons not to overdo things, not to overload the listener with too much unnecessary technical fireworks. In other words, there is a tasteful guitarist with a solid background and very fruitful ideas.
To be tasteful also means to be able to select your entourage in the best possible way. The band is small! Small bands depend largely upon each and every single member. There is no particular key person to carry the load; in this case you will find five of them. Aside from guitarist Wildi, pianist and keyboard specialist Stefan Stahel is there to cover all aspects of accompaniment, be it on piano, e-piano or even organ. Besides this delicate task, he convincingly performs high-class solo work and adds lots of interesting chord structures to the proceedings. Bassist Stephan Athanas is well known as man-of-all-trades, meaning a musician perfectly at home in practically all current music styles from world to jazz to whatever is demanded of him. His warm and powerful sound mixes really well with Pius Baschnagels drumming. For many a listener, this might be the first time to get acquainted with the talents of this young man, but it will certainly not be the famous “last encounter”. Pius is already well introduced into the jazz scene, is capable of supporting any band from trio to big band and does it with great taste and excellent mastery of his drums. Together, they seem to be a rhythm section to be discovered and are on top embroidered by Willy Kotouns percussion work. To ultimately enhance some of the compositions’ melodic lines, the listener can appreciate Monika Wildis background vocalizing. The music as conceived by David Wildi, including two well known jazz standards (Coltrane’s “Impressions” and Duke Ellingtons “In a sentimental Mood”), and gives each member of the band enough room to present themselves, at the same time gaining profile and personality. Should the group turn out to be a working band, this album is perfectly suited to promote Wildis ideas as well as his playing for future reverence. Last but not least, whoever hit upon the album title was very poetically inspired; there is much to be imagined in conjunction with the title “Windsong”.
Kurt S. Weil
Chief editor “Jazz’n’More”,
Publicist “Down Beat Magazine”
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