Jazz at JAKI: Julian Bossert Trio

You have to be able to use laconicism. And you shouldn't confuse it with irony. Both are arts of allusion, but one retains a deep seriousness within, while the other keeps its distance.
Julian Bossert, Matthias Akeo Nowak and Dominik Raab feel connected to the latently laconic attitude of cheerful seriousness and enjoy the variety of contrasts that can be developed from it. This does not require the usual mechanisms of jazz musical recognition, which dock onto practiced patterns of complexity, expressivity or transgression. Instead, the musicians cultivate the dynamic withdrawal, the restriction to basic patterns such as brush and cymbal playing, the walking bass phrasing or the velvety blown approach, which then unfold their power in the detailed work. They dispense with the certainty of harmony and play with the openness of the allusions that result. And they concentrate on pointed swing, on the subtle groove, above all on the interaction of the characters, which lend the music the impression of the organic and at the same time retain enough integrity to avoid appearing clichéd. Again, the laconic helps to lend the music an aura of presence. You can hear the smile, but also the clarity, the desire, the goal. Dead beat, bad deed - and perhaps there is a grain of irony in the mix. Just a wink.

• Ralf Dombrowski