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Jazz Articles about Hendrik Meurkens
Gabriel Espinosa/Hendrik Meurkens: Samba Little Samba
by Dan Bilawsky
The hundredth release on the Zoho imprint was the aptly-titled Celebrando (Zoho Music, 2012)--the debut collaboration between Gabriel Espinosa and Hendrik Meurkens. This follow-up date, arriving a little more than two years later, is cut from the same musical cloth, though a few minor personnel changes and role adjustments give this one its own identity. The personnel constants across both albums are pianist Misha Tsiganov, drummer Antonio Sanchez, multi-reedist Anat Cohen, and vocalist Alison Wedding. Cohen, appearing ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens/Misha Tsiganov: Junity
by Dan Bilawsky
Junity? No, that's not a misprint. Take “junto," the Brazilian word for together, and marry it with “unity"; that's how you get “junity," a hybridized term that accurately describes the relationship between harmonica master Hendrik Meurkens and pianist Misha Tsiganov. These two men have been playing together for nearly a decade, appearing together on stages across the world and pleasing Meurkens albums like Samba To Go! (Zoho Music, 2009) and Celebrando (Zoho Music, 2012). Junity, a program ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens: Live at Bird's Eye
by Chris M. Slawecki
Live at Bird's Eye embodies the truly global nature of modern jazz: Meurkens' fourth ZOHO release was recorded at two concerts performed at the Bird's Eye Jazz Club in Basel (Switzerland) by his Samba Jazz Quartet, which features this German-born vibes and harmonica player with Russian pianist Misha Tsiganov and the rhythm section of bassist Gustavo Amarante and drummer Adriano Santos, who demonstrate a deep intellectual and emotional familiarity with sambas and other forms from their native Brazil.Tsiganov's ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens: Live at Bird's Eye
by AAJ Italy Staff
Live at Bird's Eye documenta due registrazioni, una del 2008 e l'altra del 2010, realizzate presso l'omonimo jazz club di Basilea, dalla band capitanata dall'armonicista e vibrafonista tedesco Hendrik Meurkens, il quale riversa la sua passione per la musica brasiliana nei nove brani proposti, un buon mix di composizioni originali e rifacimenti di alcuni brani di Antonio Jobim, Sergio Mendes e Joao Gilberto. Siamo di fronte ad un lavoro godibile sia dal punto di vista espressivo che formale, soprattutto nei ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens: Live At Bird's Eye
by Dan Bilawsky
As a virtuoso harmonicist and vibraphonist, Hendrik Meurkens has always reigned supreme in the unique instrument doublers category, yet he never seems to get the attention he fully deserves. The German-born, New York-based Meurkens has been making beautiful and bouncy Brazilian-based music for decades with his instruments of choice, and Live At Bird's Eye is no exception. For his fourth date on the Zoho label, Meurkens culled nine numbers from two different stints that took place eighteen ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens: Live at Bird's Eye
by Edward Blanco
Considered, by many, to be the most important jazz harmonicist since Toots Thielmans, German-born/New York-based Hendrik Meurkens has long been a connoisseur of Brazilian jazz, with an impressive discography of bossa nova and samba-infused music. Live at Bird's Eye is an assemblage of Brazilian, American and Italian jazz standards recorded live on several sessions from 2008 and 2010 at the Bird's Eye Jazz Club in Basel, Switzerland. For this recording, Meurkens draws on music from Joao Donato, Antonio Carlos Jobim ...
Continue ReadingHendrik Meurkens: Harmonica Virtuoso
by Victor Verney
Although at first Hendrik Meurkens' primary instrument was the vibraphone, he has garnered an international reputation as a jazz harmonica player since picking up that difficult-to-master instrument. Born in Germany, Meurkens came to the U.S. to study at Boston's Berklee School of Music. After returning to Europe for a time, he decided to go live in Brazil to immerse himself in that county's brand of jazz, which he had heard and grown to love. Living in Rio de Janeiro (and ...
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