Lars Johnsen

Martin Lutz Group: LoLife/HiLife

by Chris May
October 15, 2023

Danish pianist and composer Martin Lutz spent much of his childhood in Eastern and Southern Africa and elements of those regions' music are to the forefront of his writing, grafted on to a Northern European folk and neo-classical base. On LoLife/HiLife, Lutz leads a sextet with a three-saxophones frontline and the African influence is most clearly heard in his horn voicings. The result is a lyrical and redemptive sound which somehow, despite this being a purely instrumental ...