About this Album — MGQ live im King Georg, Köln


As the tit­le of the album sug­gests, the new album by spi­ri­tu­al jazz legend
Muri­el Gross­mann, MGQ live im King Georg, Köln, is a live record­ing of a con­cert at King Georg Jazz Club in Colo­gne. Recor­ded on Novem­ber 11, 2022, the sym­bo­lic start of the Colo­gne car­ni­val sea­son, the album will be released three years later, at the end of the car­ni­val sea­son on Ash Wed­nes­day, March 5. 2025. If by chan­ce a con­cert in Colo­gne takes place on the Novem­ber 11, it’s only logi­cal to stick to the numbers. 

Muri­el Gross­mann, an artist who sin­gle-han­ded­ly res­ha­ped and reinven­ted spi­ri­tu­al jazz for this cen­tu­ry, and her out-of-this world explo­si­ve quar­tet play­ed a bur­ning live set, con­ver­ting the King Georg into a musi­cal island. As the car­ni­val hust­le and bust­le out­side began to die down, the club offe­red music lovers an evening of musi­cal depth. Sub­dued ligh­t­ing, an inti­ma­te club atmo­s­phe­re, groo­ve, and opti­mi­zed sound crea­ted a par­al­lel uni­ver­se of inter­pre­ti­ve expan­si­ve­ness and spi­ri­tu­al contemplation.

The King Georg record­ing is the first live record from spi­ri­tu­al jazz icon Muri­el Gross­mann, one of the grea­test spi­ri­tu­al jazz per­for­mers, record­ing artist, and com­po­ser of today. Tog­e­ther with Rado­mir Milo­j­ko­vic on gui­tar, Abel Boque­ra on Ham­mond organ, and Uros Sta­men­ko­vic on drums, Gross­mann crea­tes a cos­mos of sound that is as medi­ta­ti­ve as it is power­ful. In con­trast to the stu­dio albums released bet­ween 2018 and 2022, which were stron­gly ancho­red in modal jazz, this record­ing shows the quartet’s evo­lu­ti­on towards an incre­a­singly psy­che­de­lic, blue­sy, and moo­dy fusi­on sonic aes­the­tic beau­ti­ful­ly exe­cu­t­ed under the ban­ner of spi­ri­tu­al jazz.

After several stu­dio albums on the Esto­ni­an label RR Gems Records, a com­pi­la­ti­on on the Bri­tish label Jazz­man Records, and an album on Jack White’s Detroit label Third Man Records, ‘MGQ live im King Georg, Köln’ is the Bands first indis­pensable live album.

Her­mes Vil­lena (Power­house Records)

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