It’s a hot summer night was recorded live in what was a hot and steamy night at Alter Schwede in Berlin in August 2025, and features an ad-hoc classic format of free jazz trio – Ignaz Schick on alto sax, double bass player Ben Lehmann, and drummer Michael Griener, for their first-ever performance. The trio played two extended sets. The first one, titled «Hot House», focused on the intuitive, free-associative, and emphatic dynamics of the trio, often referencing the jazz legacy with Schick’s caressing sax solos, Griener’s driving, hard swing drumming, and Lehmann’s solid bass support. This piece suggested that this trio was already establishing an immediate affinity. The second piece is called «Medley for Ornette (Coleman)/Lonely Woman», diving deep into the bluesy theme of Coleman’s iconic piece and using it as a recurring theme for this soulful improvisation. Schick sings beautifully the moving, soulful theme, Lehmann accompanies him with impressive arco and pizzicato work, and Geiener colors it with great rhythmic wisdom. I hope that this trio will keep exploring its great potential.
Guitarist Olaf Rupp and Schick are long-standing members of the Berlin Echtzeitmusik scene, but recorded their debut duo album only in July 2024 at Kühlspot Berlin. True to their DIY approach, Schick, who plays alto and baritone saxes, recorded and designed the cover artwork, and Rupp, who plays electric and acoustic guitars, mixed the recording. First Duo Meeting features two extended improvisations, the urgent and raw series of intense and explosive collisions of «Thirst», with Rupp on electric guitar that ends with some soulful overtones, and «Hunger», still urgent but more playful and openly emotional, with Rupp on acoustic guitar. It sounds like the Rupp and Schick have not satisfied their appetite for more such invigorating meetings of this kind.
The Ripper is an archival broadcast of a commissioned work for Austrian Radio (ORF) in 2012 by Schick, on turntables and sampler, with fellow German visual artist and radio maker Ernst Markus Stein (AKA DJ SchluchT), on tape and electronics. This 52-minute recording sounds like a hyperactive radio play that constantly swings between places and times, moods and feelings, often using quotes from horror movies and disaster areas.
Eyal Hareuveni
Ignaz Schick (alto saxophone, baritone saxophone, turntables, sampler), Ben Lehmann (double bass), Michael Griener (drums, percussion), Olaf Rupp (electric guitars, acoustic guitars), Ernst Markus Stein (tapes, electronics)
