SWR2 NEW Jazz Meeting 2003

The NewJazz Meeting 2003 organized by the SWR2 Jazz Department is being held from 8 to 14 December. Following a week of rehearsals in Baden-Baden a band of seven musicians will go on tour through three cities in the region, beginning in Freiburg and Tübingen and giving their final concert in the Blue Cube at the ZKM.

The concert concept has been devised by the American composer, Daniel Rothman, who has produced a live electronic environment for interaction between the musicians. The outcome is a continuation of the link between improvised and composed music that proved so fruitful at last year’s NEWJazz Meeting. 

The environment entitled Un coup de dés is not a composition in the traditional sense but rather a flexible sound system that uses sample inserts not only to show the improvisers the path to take, but also to subject the instrumental sounds made by the musicians themselves to a live electronic transformation process by means of signal processing. The electronics thus intervene directly in the live sounds produced by the musicians. At the same time Rothman’s concept provides a structural framework without restricting the musicians’ scope for improvisation. Included in the international team of musicians from America, Britain and Austria is the Japanese poet, Yoko Tawada, whose multilingual lyricism gives the project a very special touch.

Daniel Rothman : composition & live electronics 
Kent Clelland : live electronics
John Edwards : bass 
Gerry Hemingway : drums 
Radu Malfatti : trombone 
David Smeyers : clarinet 
Yoko Tawada : vocals