Personnel:
Klemens Marktl (d), David Kikoski (p), Boris Kozlov (b)
Reference: FSRCD 5118
Bar code: 8427328651189
Truly a long time musical dream of mine came true when Sepp Grabmaier, a Jazz enthusiast from Austria and organizer of one of Austria's best known festivals called Snow Jazz Gastein, invited me to perform with pianist extraordinaire Dave Kikoski in a Trio setting as a grande finale at his Festival.
I have been following this piano veteran's career and discography since my early Jazz studies in the 90's and therefore I was prepared for the sound and music of Mr.Kikoski. Immediately my dear friend and great bassist Boris Kozlov from New York came to my mind to complete that exciting Trio. I have performed with Boris in New York as well as on tours in Europe with pianist John Di Martino and it was musical and social love from the first note.
Playing trio with Dave and Boris feels like total musical freedom from swinging standards, subtle ballads to most energetic originals with a modern touch. Yet you gotta be ready for surprises that may open new musical doors.
Trio is one of my favorite settings in Jazz and especially with these two Jazz giants I had the pleasure to experience total musical freedom and interaction within the Jazz idiom. With Boris Kozlov on my side I have truly a bassmaster that handles all styles of music while being super rhythmical, flexible and groovy
at the same time. We build the foundation and support for Kikoski's swinging lines and imaginative ideas to express in “OUR” trio!
We started our 15-day tour in Germany's three river town of Passau and ended in a small village near my hometown called Hüttenberg. The three of us had been playing together as a rhythm section in my sextet at my Smalls Jazz club engagement in New York but when we got together as a trio, I remember that we couldn't stop playing for couple of hours cause we took “off” from the beginning!
Throughout this tour around Austria Georg Croll, a real Jazz enthusiast from Salzburg, was following us for a couple of concerts and totally fell in love with our music! He decided spontaneous to record our LIVE performance at Rossstall Lambach and here is the proof documented on this recording!
Between the warm welcoming of the club personal and a very attentive audience somehow this concert turned out to bemagical and I am thankful formy dear friends Georg & Robert for their enthusiasmand recording us.
Thank you again Dave and Boris for making this musical moments magical and your energy and support on and off stage! Feeling bless...
—Klemens Marktl
"If you put together a classical piano trio in jazz, you have to come up with something to avoid being overwhelmed by the overwhelming power of your idols.At the end it stands and falls with the pianist. And then the Carinthian drummer Klemens Marktl made an absolute stroke of luck on his new CD: the US pianist Dave Kikoski. The man is something like an institution, has played with legendary drummers like Roy Haynes or Billy Hart and went on tour a few weeks before the Pandemic with Marktl and the Russian bassist Boris Kozlov, who lives in New York.
The Klemens Marktl Trio asked for high rhythmic standards from the Great American Songbook: including Charlie Parker's "Moose the Mooche", Thelonious Monk`s“Trinkle Tinkle” or - breathtakingly - the ballad “My One and Only Love” by Guy Wood and Robert Mellin. In addition, there are original compositions by Kikoski and Marktl themselves.
Kikoski is not one of those playful tricksters at the piano who quickly lose themselves in improvisational insignificance.You immediately feel the groove, every chord is there and everything develops organically. Difficulty finds easy, runs flee confidently across all registers.Kikoski is present like McCoy Tyner at one time. It is hardly surprising that bassist Kozlov, as a long-time colleague in the Charles Mingus Big Band, fits in well. But how Klemens Marktl can keep up is astonishing. “His” trio is bursting with joy in playing, which is captured very well by the live recording in the Rossstall in Lambach, Austria."
—Gilbert WaldnerKleine
Zeitung (November 16, 2021)
