photo: Jürgen Rehrmann
SKEIN 4
Frank Gratkowski – alto saxophone, clarinets and flutes
Achim Kaufmann – piano
Wilbert de Joode – bass
Tony Buck – drums
After ten years on the road
as a trio, Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de Joode started working with extended
settings, such as the electro-acoustic sextet/septet SKEIN.
In the fall of 2014, the trio had asked Tony Buck to play a couple of quartet dates together.
It turned out that Tony was the perfect partner in crime for the trio which had gone „drummer-less“ for more than a decade.
In May 2018, the SKEIN quartet (a.k.a. Kaufmann/Gratkowski/de Joode/Buck) embarked on a 12-concert tour that took them all over Europe.
The last gig of that tour was recorded at the Loft in Köln and subsequently released as Flatbosc & Cautery by NoBusiness Records.
"The music took me away, I was enchanted by what I heard, there was no
way to escape from the sheer perfection and enthusiasm presented by the
musicians.
(…) As someone put it after the concert, when we were talking to the
musicians: 'After five seconds I knew this would be a great concert'.
There’s nothing more to add.“
Martin Schray, freejazzblog.org
„Bei Small Ways, Chasmal kommt
eine Stimmungsbreite auf und ein Flow - Power und Gegenpower sorgsam
austariert, Gratkowski und Kaufmann dabei bestechend - und ein Feeling
der Unmittelbarkeit, dass einen die Sehnsucht nach live nur noch
mächtiger überfällt. Diese Band auf der Bühne: der Traum aller
gegenwärtigen Träume.“
Gabriel Aniol, Jazz Podium (top 3 of the March/April 2021 edition)