Jazz Articles about Christian Weber

About Christian Weber

Album Review

Co Streiff - Russ Johnson Quartet: Oracle

Read "Oracle" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
October 7, 2026

"In Circles--Yellow Crane" joins two pieces, Co Streiff's “In Circles," which also gave the quartet's 2012 debut its title, and Russ Johnson's “Yellow Crane." At 16 minutes, 27 seconds it is the longest track on Oracle, taken from the group's 2023 European tour. The band has been together on and off since the early 2010s, with Gerry Hemingway on drums since 2019 and Christian Weber on bass. Sixteen minutes is a lot of room for a quartet with ...

Album Review

Gerry Hemingway with Izumi Kimura, Frank Gratkowski and Christian Weber: Live at Bau 4

Read "Live at Bau 4" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 1, 2026

Drummer and composer Gerry Hemingway has spent five decades proving that percussion can be as harmonically literate as any horn or keyboard. That reputation was forged during his decade with the Anthony Braxton Quartet and expanded through an expansive discography on labels including Auricle, Tzadik, Clean Feed, and Intakt. Now based in Switzerland, Hemingway continues to cultivate collaborations that balance compositional rigor with the spontaneity of collective improvisation. Live at Bau 4 documents one such encounter. Per Maxi ...

Album Review

Gerry Hemingway: Live at Bau 4

Read "Live at Bau 4" reviewed by Mark Corroto

by Mark Corroto
August 1, 2026

Touch. It is the word that most often comes to mind when listening to the music of composer and drummer Gerry Hemingway. While rhythm and structure are central to his work, it is touch, the physical act of striking, rubbing, bowing, pressing and releasing that gives his music its distinctive character. Hemingway's performances do more than generate sound; they evoke texture. They invite the listener to imagine the grain of wood, the scrape of metal, the vibration of strings and ...

Album Review

Russ Johnson: To Walk On Eggshells

Read "To Walk On Eggshells" reviewed by Glenn Astarita

by Glenn Astarita
August 18, 2025

Russ Johnson, a Chicago-bred trumpeter with a knack for adventurous jazz, joins forces with Swiss bassist Christian Weber and drummer Dieter Ulrich, both stalwarts of the Zurich jazz scene. Johnson's resume boasts collaborations with everyone from Lee Konitz to his own genre-bending Russ Johnson Quartet, while Weber and Ulrich have carved out reputations as nimble improvisers, notably in projects such as Oliver Lake's For A Little Dancin (Intakt, 2010) and Co Streiff's sextet. This nine-track album is a ...

Album Review

Russ Johnson, Christian Weber, Dieter Ulrich: To Walk On Effshells

Read "To Walk On Effshells" reviewed by Alberto Bazzurro

by Alberto Bazzurro
June 26, 2025

Tutti a firma dei tre performers, con prevalenza di Johnson, i nove brani che compongono questo CD, inciso a Zurigo nel lontano dicembre 2009. Lo firma in maniera “democratica" un trio agguerrito sia in diversi degli episodi di cui sopra che proprio negli esiti complessivi, sempre esemplari per lucidità e capacità di condurre la musica lungo i sentieri scelti di volta in volta. C'è parecchia improvvisazione, è chiaro, ma il fatto che ciascun momento del disco rechi una e una ...

Album Review

The Workers: Altbüron

by John Eyles
March 27, 2021

Altbüron is the first album release from The Workers, a newly-formed quartet of experienced Swiss improvisers, each of whom had previously collaborated with at least one other member; the quartet comprises soprano saxophonist Urs Leimgruber (born 1952), alto saxophonist, flautist and voice Omri Ziegele (born 1959), bassist Christian Weber (born 1972) and drummer Alex Huber (born 1982), those dates illustrating the range of ages--and, hence, influences— within the group. This album was recorded live at bau 4 in Altbüron, in ...

Album Review

Aki Takase: Auge

by John Sharpe
February 27, 2021

While it might be Aki Takase's name which grabs the attention thanks to her illustrious track record, the trio on Auge represents a true co-operative, as the Berlin-based Japanese pianist joins forces with Swiss bassist Christian Weber and German drummer Michael Griener in a perfectly balanced triumvirate. Takase draws on an ouevre which famously encompasses almost the entire history of jazz, stretching from projects reimagining Fats Waller, Duke Ellington, and Eric Dolphy all the way to freeform ...