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Raphael Walser

Double bass player and composer Raphael Walser, born in 1988, grew up near Zurich in a family of musicians. He started taking double bass lessons when he was only eleven years old, at first classical, and later on he studied jazz at the Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK with various teachers such as Bänz Oester, Frank Sanderell, Christian Weber and Larry Grenadier. Already before studying, he was part of various jazz bands. Already during his studies, he was able to claim prizes and play at festivals in both Switzerland and Germany.

After completing his studies in 2013 he founded his own band GangArt. Their first album is released as part of the renowned series „Jazz Thing Next Generation.“ 2017 was the band part of the festival "Swiss Diagonales Jazz" and was awarded with the 2nd price at the "ZKB Jazzpreis". 2019 appeared their second album "Zwischen Grund und Grat", where they deal with their cultural heritage and made new versions of three swiss folk songs. 2020 he releases the third album with the Rhaeto-Romance title "Stüdis da la natüra" in collaboration with the illustrator Pia Valär.

From 2018 on, he is lecturer for double bass and ear training at the institute for current music in Winterthur (WIAM). As main projects he is part of the collective trios "The Jazz Trio" and "divr".

Samir Bohringer Quartet: Meta Zero

by Chris May
October 22, 2023

The Ezz-thetics label's sleeve-design grid and its orange and black colourway is as recognisable a piece of branding as were Reid Miles' sleeves for Blue Note in the 1950s and 1960s (or indeed Impulse!'s orange and black LP spines a little later). It is also a similarly copper-bottomed guarantee of quality. Ezz-thetics does not, of course, have an audience the size of Blue Note's, but that is the way it is for a niche label, or, as in this case, ...

Album Review

Raphael Walsers GangArt: Zwischen Grund und Grat

Read "Zwischen Grund und Grat" reviewed by Geno Thackara

by Geno Thackara
October 9, 2019

Swiss folk probably isn't the first thing anyone will associate with this Gang's particular art at first glance. It starts by dropping straight into churning action without any buildup, kicking off with a classy swinger that gradually trades catchiness for a pile-on of horns that snowballs until it all breaks down in chaos. With the next track comes an initially baffling series of wonky piano and sax lines. The following selections continue making a somewhat angular challenge if approached in ...