Cologne Jazzweek: Petter Eldh Projekt Drums

Sure, you can do that: a double bass player who has titled his record (and now his band) "Drums Project", because bass and drums are the rhythmic backbone of a band in jazz. But if you expect the usual modern jazz, you don't know bassist Petter Eldh, who was born in Gothenburg, Sweden, in 1983. After coming to Berlin in 2009 after studying at the Rytmisk Music Conservatory in Copenhagen, he has played a major role in shaping the course of the jazz scene. The way he handles his instrument has little to do with what one is usually used to from the double bass. Eldh's playing is rarely virtuosic and delicate, much preferring to pluck and rip the strings, and his sound aesthetic has more of the gruffness of punk rock. In addition, he loves to rework his studio recordings through a variety of postproduction. That's why we can't wait to see how Eldh will bring his typical melodic fragments, the almost infinitely layered patterns and these sounds of his "Drums Project", morphed almost beyond recognition, to the stage for the first time at the Cologne Jazz Week. Because that's also part of Eldh's improvisational work: showing the audience how a studio project can be turned into a rousing live performance. And of the six drummers on the album "Drums Project Vol. 1," the young New Yorker Savannah Harris will play the drumset at its live premiere.