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“Timeless and innovative… a musical genius” Mike Gates, UK Vibe
“A listening experience akin to transcendence” Andrew Jones, Down Beat
“Vibrant, passionate, exhilarating. A monument of spiritual jazz” Mark Sarazzy, Impro Jazz
“A journey that takes off like missile, passes through meditation, reaches nirvana and ends with thanksgiving” Elliot Simon, NYC jazz records
“Timelessly beautiful” Christian Bakonyi, Concerto
“You know you are always going to get quality on the Jazzman label and this is yet another brilliant example!” Ruth Fisher, Jazz FM
Born in Paris, raised in Vienna, resident in Ibiza, saxophonist and composer Muriel Grossmann embodies the borderless, pan-continental energies of contemporary European jazz. Her music emerges from the lineage of European jazz that’s absorbed the progressive music of Coltrane, Dolphy and Sanders. Today, she cites players such as Illinois Jacquet and Lester Young in the same breath as the masters of the avant-garde, and her playing marries the directness and eloquence of the older generation with the questing, spiritualised playing epitomised by Coltrane. The roster of musicians she has played with is long, and includes veteran European avant-gardists including Joachim and Rolf Kühn, Wolfgang Reisinger and Thomas Heidepriem, and she works tirelessly with contemporary groups and big bands across the continent.
Since her first recordings in the early 2000s, Grossmann has released a dozen albums as leader, featuring sounds ranging from hard-swinging modernist jams to free improvisation, expansive spiritual work to rhythm-focussed Afrocentrism. But at the centre of her work is a thread of pure and heartfelt spiritual music in the modal tradition defined by Coltrane and close collaborators like Pharoah Sanders and Alice Coltrane. You can’t play this music successfully if you don’t mean it – like the music of her contemporary Nat Birchall, Grossmann’s engagement with the Coltrane tradition is sincere and deep. Her music resonates within the tradition – more than just a style, it adds a new chapter to the story of modal and spiritual jazz in Europe.
This Jazzman set draws a selection from her 2016 album Natural Time (‘Your Pace’, ‘Peace For All’) and from 2017’s Momentum (‘Elevation’, ‘Chant’ and ‘Rising’). Featuring her regular quartet of Radomir Milojkovic (guitar) Uros Stamenkovic (drums) and Gina Schwarz (bass), the music on Elevation is pure sound, soul and spirit!
ALBUM REVIEWS
REVIEW by Mike Gates, Uk Vibe, May 2020 visit page here
In some ways, listening to a Muriel Grossmann album is like stepping back in time. Reflections of Coltrane, Dolphy and Sanders catch the light in my mind’s eye, dancing spirits infused with the power of discovery and inner healing. But it’s so much more than that. Embodying the borderless, fearless, pan-continental energies of contemporary modern jazz, Grossmann’s playing truly embodies the directness and eloquence of the older generation whilst capturing a new, fresh and inspiring virtuosity that leaves me breathless with admiration.
Born in Paris, raised in Vienna, resident in Ibiza, saxophonist and composer Muriel Grossmann has released a dozen albums as leader, going back to the early 2000s. Featuring sounds ranging from hard-swinging modernist jams to free improvisation, expansive spiritual work to rhythm-focussed Afrocentrism, there has always been a distinctive thread of pure and heartfelt spiritual music at the centre of her work. You can’t play this music successfully if you don’t mean it – like the music of her contemporary Nat Birchall, Grossmann’s engagement with the Coltrane tradition is sincere and deep. Her music resonates within the tradition, adding her own innovative voice to the story of modal and spiritual jazz in Europe.
“Elevation” is a vinyl only release from Jazzman, and draws on a selection from her 2016 CD album Natural Time (‘Your Pace’, ‘Peace For All’) and from 2017’s CD Momentum (‘Elevation’, ‘Chant’ and ‘Rising’). I discovered Grossman’s music relatively recently, through her two more recent albums, Reverence, and Golden Rule, both released on the RR Gems label. I instantly fell in love with her sound. Featuring her regular quartet of Radomir Milojkovic (guitar) Uros Stamenkovic (drums) and Gina Schwarz (bass), the music chosen for this album has the same feel and vibe to it as her more recent releases, encompassing all that is bold and beautiful about the way she and her band bring together a captivating sense of intimacy, joy and freedom from the glorious music they are performing.
Side A kicks off with a sense of urgency. The retro-feel to Grossmann’s music just adds to the vitality of it all. Crisp, sparkling, melodic invention mixes seamlessly with the deep grooves that arrive quickly, staying present for the tune’s duration, allowing for the gloriously spontaneous soloing to drift in and out of the title track. ‘Rising’ continues in a similar vein, the quartet creating a luxurious atmosphere that floats and slowly spills its gifts of life into the welcoming consciousness. As with all of the tunes here, the solid link between drums and bass, and sax and guitar, leaves a lasting impression, not unlike a late ’60s early ’70s improvisational Jan Garbarek/Terje Rypdal Quartet. Side B has a slightly less raw edge to it, with the sublime ‘Chant’ speaking volumes in a subtle, unhurried way. Alluring and timeless, ‘Your Pace’ is soulful and beguiling, it’s meditative melody enriched by the undoubted connection this group of musicians share. The closing piece ‘Peace For All’ features Grossmann at her best, her sax soulful and contemplative, before reaching out and soaring like a beautiful eagle flying over the most incredibly stunning mountain scenery. Emotive and strikingly innovative, this music is just so inspiring.
Mike Gates
REVIEW by Dominic Valvona, Monolith Cocktail, May 2020 visit page here
Many jazz greats have of course attempted it, the ‘elevation’ of not just the form but consciousness itself. The Egyptologist anointed Pharoah Sanders even named an album after it; an ascendance at a time when jazz was embracing its spiritual roots and historical gravitas: a return to the source in Africa.
The supremely talented saxophonist bandleader Muriel Grossmann, imbued with that same spirit of vague conscious mysticism and experimentation, has now named one of her own impressive Afrojazz odysseys after that totem of an influential album. It won’t come as any surprise to find that the Pharaoh just happens to be one of Grossmann’s influences, alongside such luminaries as John and Alice Coltrane, Lester Young and Eric Dolphy; all of which permeate throughout this survey of the European jazz star’s recent(ish) work.
A sort of introduction for those unfamiliar with an artist who’s spent the last two decades on the European scene, playing with the likes of Joachim and Rolf Kühn, Wolfgang Reisinges and Thomas Heidepriem, the impeccable Jazzman label have chosen to represent Grossmann’s catalogue with suites from the 2016 Natural Time and 2017 Momentum albums; a moiety almost of complimentary records.
In all a quintet of congruous traverses, from a duo of albums, Grossman’s own Elevation seems a fully realised, interconnected and flowing oeuvre that could have been recorded all at the same session, only yesterday. An adventure across desert contours, on the caravan trail in search of enlightenment and jazz nirvana; the impressively invocative saxophonist and her troupe of regulars turn in a fantastical panoramic opus.
We start with the latter of those albums and a trio of pyramid backdrop numbers that pay homage to the Coltranes (especially Alice), the Pharaoh, Archie Shepp and Greenwich-hip era Albert Ayler. That guiding light title-track is a ten-minute plus extravaganza of splashing drums, oozing and swaddled sax and mini plucked out guitar solos. It sounds like the group is on an opulent trinket laden barge. At first lingering, trembling and stirring in milder Nile waters, the action hot’s up as the river becomes more animated and choppy. Grossmann literally spirals towards the stars; giddily blowing so fast that her trademark instrument turns into a clarinet at one point. Almost easing into the shimmery resonating ‘Rising’, the quartet sumptuously treads further along a mysterious pathway. Uros Stamenkovic brushes the sand off his flighty drum kit, and Radomir Milojkovic bends and picks out a dizzying frill of notes on guitar as Grossmann flitters and flutters on another of these conscious trips.
Still gliding or walking that same North African jazz geography, both ‘Your Peace’ and ‘Peace For All’ may very well have furnished another album, but embrace and breath the same spiritual to experimental jazz air. Shifting sands move underfoot on the first of those dusky shufflers, whilst Eastern mystical chimes and serenity make way for progressive soulful sax, successions of deft guitar licks and burnished drums on the second of those mirages.
Hardly a slavish attempt at reproducing Grossmann’s inspirations, Elevation is an impressive, evocative continuation of those forbearers blueprint. A showcase of exploratory jazz left free to follow those same forbearers by a group of European avant-gardists. by Dominic Valvona
REVIEW by Dusty Groove, Chicago visit page here
Fantastic work from saxophonist Muriel Grossmann – a player who’s turning out to be as important to our generation as John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders were to theirs! Over the course of a handful of albums, mostly issued under the radar, Muriel has been building up this tremendous legacy in spiritual jazz – long-spun tunes that feature her burning work on tenor over some very unique rhythmic conceptions – usually modal, but delivered in a way that’s very fresh, and which often has guitar filling a place that’s normally held by piano – so that Grossman’s horn takes off in this fantastic flurry of rhythm and color! The folks at Jazzman Records, strong supporter of spiritual jazz in its many forms, have put together this set as a great collection of some of Miriam’s earlier, self-released records – a great introduction, but also an essential slice of her genius – with five long tracks that include “Elevation”, “Rising”, “Chant”, “Your Pace”, and “Peace For All”.
REVIEW by Windout, May 2020
Vibrant, passionate the music of Muriel Grossmann (sax) pushes jazz on experimental grounds, a universe “hidden” within the new jazz. Timeless and innovative. Her music emerges from the Davisian language and has absorbed the spiritual music of Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders with modern dialogues and absolute freedom with elastic vibes in the style of Ahmad Jamal. . Grossmann’s proposal adds a new chapter in the history of modal jazz in Europe: born in Paris, raised in Vienna, living in Ibiza, saxophonist and composer Muriel Grossmann embodies the boundless and pan-continental energies of contemporary jazz with a range of ‘black’ sound in a really interesting way. On this five-track vinyl (and CD) she draws a selection from her 2016 album “Natural Time” (‘Your Pace’, ‘Peace For All’) and from Momentum of 2017 (‘Elevation’, ‘Chant’ and ‘Rising’). With her regular quartet with Radomir Milojkovic (guitar), Uros Stamenkovic (drums) and Gina Schwarz (bass), Elevation’s music is pure sound, soul, and psychedelic funk of the best tradition.