Browse by Artist: WILLERS, ANDREAS

Artist:	WILLERS, ANDREAS
Title:	Tin Drum Stories
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	BTL 009

"Flight into art seems to be one of the ways of escaping the complexities of reality. Even if Andreas Willers took his inspiration for his 4-part Tin Drum Stories from the quaint twists in the plot of Günter Grass' novel The Tin Drum, his compositions and the way he transposed his model are fascinating in their own right. The explorations of this exceptional guitarist who has made recordings with most of the important European musicians, including Enrico Rava and Louis Sclavis, as well as with Americans such as Paul Bley and David Murray, are convincing simply because he has long since found a way for himself which is agreeably different from the music of multitudes of imitators of Bill Frisell and John Scofield. In his Tin Drum Stories melodies are often merely hinted at and move in space like mobiles. Some motifs arrange themselves into melodic patterns which emerge as surprisingly as the colourful, flowing patterns produced in the glass segments when one shakes a kaleidoscope. Line Up: Andreas Willers (el. & ac. guitar, banjo, ukulele, doorharp), Horst Nonnenmacher (b), Michael Griener (trap set, prepared trap set, dictaphone)."

Artist:	WILLERS, ANDREAS
Title:	In The North
Label:	BETWEEN THE LINES (GERMANY)
Format:	CD
Price:	$16.00
Catalog #:	BTL 026

"One of the most convincing talents on the contemporary German jazz scene is the versatile Andreas Willers with his strong chamber-music orientation. An homage to Jimmy Giuffre. In actual fact, however, In the North goes beyond Giuffre's dissolution of traditional patterns, penetrating far into the desolate realm of the second-hand existences of our age. Just listen to the spacious expanses and desert-like isolation of the title piece or the tonelessly breathed interludes of trombonist Yves Robert in the subtly de-constructed Giuffre classic 'The Train & the River' -- like a meeting of people whose worst expectations of the future have come true. Art, it is true, is a reaction to its time, and this is very clear from the cleverly fragmented 'Motif' or the eerily beautiful 'Glaswerk' as well from a ghostly and very brief version of Giuffre's 'Gotta Dance', which breaks off abruptly. Like Giuffre's legendary groups without drums, this line-up dispenses with drums of any sort, and pianist Paul Bley provides an original link to the -- meanwhile historical -- trio Giuffre/Bley/Swallow, while the virtuoso Willers and Yves Robert follow -- in the widest sense of the word -- Giuffre's irresistible co-operation with Jim Hall and Bob Brookmeyer. Just listen to the flashes of genius by Bley in 'Face Two' or the dark, air-filled sound of Yves Robert in Bley's tremendous ballad 'Carla', or the inspired nimbleness of all the players in 'Motion'. We are presented here mostly with intimate, low-key stories. But they certainly tell us more about where and how we are than much of the blaring, sycophantic stamping produced by the entertainment industry."

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