Contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Links: www.mondaynightproductions.com

Style: Jazz
Origin: Luxemburg, Belgien, Germany
Touring party: 5 (4 on stage)
Territory: Exclusive for G/A/S, Scandinavia, Spain, Turkey, Eastern Europe, USA and Canada
Availability: On Request

The "ECHO Jazz" 2012 goes to Pascal Schumacher !

The "ECHO Jazz" 2012 in the category "Instrumentalist of the year International, special instruments, Vibraphone" for the album "Bang my Can" released by Enja Records goes to Pascal Schumacher.

Pascal Schumacher won the Django D’Or for Young Talent in 2005 and has continued to assure his position as an outstanding artist and composer, culminating in being awarded one of Jazz Music’s most prestigious titles - the ECHO JAZZ for International Instrumentalist of the year 2012. He has been described as a “Goldsmith” in his art, a boundary-pushing musician, a resourceful improviser and an imaginative composer. Keen to explore the links that exist between many musical genres, it is difficult to pigeon–hole his talent, his taste or his musical influences. One thing is certain: he is a Vibraphone player with a unique aptitude and sensitivity who manages to inject panache and flamboyance into every performance. His flair for improvisation is married to a lucid inventiveness which together creates an original sound as visionary as it is melodic. As a physical performer, he is skilful, far-reaching and theatrical without being pretentious, making his performances inclusive and interesting to watch. Since he gave birth to his first serious musical project in 1995, his musical partnerships and projects resemble his eclectic nature.

PASCAL SCHUMACHER PROJECTS:

1) His duo with Jef Neve produces a hybrid that has been described as somewhere between pop-infused contemporary music and classic-infused jazz.

2) Pascal Schumacher and  Francesco Tristano, also recognised as an European Concert Hall Organization “Rising Star”, perform as a trio with the Lebanese percussionist Bachar Khalifé and share with the audience fascinating insights on the beauty of the journey into the contemporary sound experience.

3) The Pascal Schumacher Quartet has a potent hook-laden feel that creatively destroys all notions of the polite dinner jazz associations of the past and produces a contemporary sound that is beautiful, melodic and effortlessly articulated. Their 5th studio album, “Bang My Can” the third release on Enja records, was launched in 2012 to critical acclaim.

LINE UP:
Pascal Schumacher - vibraphone
Franz von Chossy - piano
Christophe Devisscher - double bass
Jens Dueppe - drums

4) In the project “In phase with JS Bach” Pascal Schumacher offers a decomposition and re-composition of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 (BWV 1048) written in 1719. He uses his own starting point, based on his own particular aesthetic, which has been honed through his influences and his style created from a co-existence between European and American contemporary Jazz.

As a composer he writes not only for the duo, trio, quartet and chamber music ensembles, but has also created and produced film, theatre and dance projects. He was involved in a ground- breaking Multi-Media project “CTRL variations” and a trans-disciplinary theatre project entitled "LUXTIME – Jacques Tati revisited".

He is a laureate of no less than four of Europe’s most notable Conservatories from his home town of Luxembourg as well as those in The Hague, Strasbourg and Brussels.  He now teaches in the Luxembourg Conservatory and in the HFM (Hochschule für Musik) in Saarbrücken, Germany.

His latest creation is the glorious soundtrack  written to accompany  the  recently restored 1929 silent film  “A Woman one longs for”  directed by Curtis Bernhardt and starring the incomparable Marlene Dietrich. As well as being produced on DVD, it was premiered as a Live Film-Concert in the Philharmonie Luxembourg on 24.5.2012 conducted by Christian Schumann. The ever enigmatic Ms. Dietrich might finally have met her match in the unequivocal expertise of Mr. Schumacher. (Text by Ruth Fisher)

ad 3) BANG MY CAN - NEW RELEASE

Release date: 23 May 2011

Label: Enja Records

PRESS QUOTES
"Schumacher and pianist Franz von Chossy show themselves to be resourceful improvisers, with an abundance of lucid ideas effortlessly articulated over the many shifts of metre. Meanwhile, Christophe Devisscher (on bass) and Jens Düppe (on drums) play with a mix of muscle, precision and exquisite dynamic sensitivity. With their potent, hook-laden music, this group has an Esbjörn Svensson Trio-like buzz about it." LondonJazz

"A jazz quartet that combines four talented soloists is uncommon enough: a quartet where every member combines top flight musicianship with compositional talent is as rare as hen's teeth. The Pascal Schumacher Quartet manages both combinations with ease." All About Jazz

Every musician must one day free himself from role models and traditions if he wishes to cross the well known trodden paths. Pascal Schumacher does this in an emphatic, sensual way. He treads the difficult path of the inventive artist who does not succumb to the blessings of modern sound diversity and studio technology but weighs up and measures sounds, posing a challenge to and struggling with music. Strictly speaking he is more a purist than many other musicians who pay homage to the past. For what concerns him is his instrument, from which he wrests individuality without needing assistance from any heroes.

The vibraphone does not make things easy for him. Its sound is exotic, but is inflexible and historically restricted to entertainment and effects. Originally patented as a percussive device, it belongs to the family of percussion instruments and is often also seen as one possibility among a large number of drumming alternatives. A few legends have hitherto lent character to the instrument and enhanced its pedigree by a little swing, some bop, a pinch of modernity and a touch of salsa. And so one need no longer worry about the acceptance of the instrument, but there are only a handful of musicians who have left clear marks in the jazz world as composers, stylists and visionaries of the vibraphone.

For Pascal Schumacher this is a challenge. The young Luxembourg musician not only wishes to assert himself in the mass of inconsistent reference systems; he also wants to send a signal. His musical mixture is distinctive, ranging stylistically from late Romantic to the new emphatic quality of the present. The sounds approach the discreet funkiness of the Fender Rhodes or the semblance of steel drums, play with an organ-like elegiac mood on the one hand and opulence increasing to a state of trance on the other. And they do not end with Pascal Schumacher’s instrument but build on the energy of the quartet, on the force of a reciprocal creative power.

The result is remarkable. Track by track, “Bang My Can“ grows into an epic without words, juggling with structure and resolution. Music comes into being which has an organic, down-to-earth and energetic effect. It is rooted in the present, plays with the past, with strength and with pathos, and is based on an approach characterized just as much by the chamber jazz of the eighties as by the rock sound of the nineties and the openness of the present. And so Pascal Schumacher is well on the way to becoming something out of the ordinary. He has an excellent team at his side, a compact, recognisable repertoire and his own idea of sound, and is serious enough not to lose his sense of humour in details – vibes with attitude, in step with the times. (Ralf Dombrowski)