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Jazz Articles about Nik Bärtsch
Nik Bärtsch: Entendre
by Geno Thackara
Amidst the different shifting contexts that Nik Bärtsch has used to explore his unique minimalist-groove style known as Zen funk--his counterpart Ronin and Mobile groups having gone through a few changes and sometimes expanded with extra members as Ronin Rhythm Clan--it's a rare pleasure to simply hear him on his own. His compositions are titled as “Modul"s because their building blocks are meant to be adaptable to any number of different combinations or band lineups, and they're no less fascinating ...
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by Mike Jurkovic
Prepared, primal architecture sparks the core of pianist Nik Bartsch's rapid fire, polymetric obsessions. So he titles his works moduls (German) or modules as the are known in King's English. Each piece adaptable and transactional to the next. Each variant available to lend its unique ruminative or propulsive elements to the music preceding or succeeding it. It's a hypnotic concept to be sure, played out with the clock work precision of his ensembles Ronin, with recordings like the staggering Awase ...
Continue ReadingNik Bärtsch: Entendre
by Karl Ackermann
Swiss keyboardist & composer Nik Bärtsch has been recording for two decades, mostly with his Ronin and Mobile groups and their overlapping musicians. A ceaseless experimenter, his early release Hishiryo: Piano Solo (Ronin Rhythm Records, 2002) was a genre-neutral project where he played piano, prepared piano, and percussion. It has been almost twenty years between solo albums, but Bärtsch has made the wait worthwhile with Entendre, his seventh album for the ECM label. It reflects the notion that music does ...
Continue ReadingNik Bartsch: Entendre
by Chris May
Back in 2006, Swiss composer and keyboard player Nik Bärtsch's ECM debut, Stoa, recorded with his group Ronin, sounded like the album James Brown might have made if he'd appointed Steve Reich musical director of his backing band, The J.B.'s. Simultaneously cerebral and on the good foot, it was minimalism, Jim, but not as we knew it. Bärtsch called the music “zen funk." Since then, Bärtsch has continued to explore the deep space of music-as-math, shuffling and ...
Continue ReadingNik Bärtsch e il Questionario di Proust
by Paolo Peviani
Il tratto principale della mia musica Una sensualità intelligente. La qualità che desidero nei musicisti che suonano con me L'ascolto. Come musicista, il momento in cui sono stato più felice Quando si riesce a stare insieme in modo naturale. Come musicista, il mio principale difetto Sono un pessimo cuoco. La mia più grande paura quando suono Una performance ...
Continue ReadingJazz, Zen, and Hip-Hop: The 2019 Montreal Jazz Festival
by Matt Hooke
Exploring the grounds of the Montreal Jazz Festival is like going to all you can eat Las Vegas buffet. “Look over there at table four; there's Dixieland. Wait at table six, there's Latin jazz, supposedly the main table as a new head chef, let's go there." You can stuff yourself by going to more than ten concerts during a single 13-hour day at the festival. The best part is that all of the outdoor concerts, over ...
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