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Winfried Gruber has been working as an architect and musician in Austria and Italy for many years. Among other things he built the Jazz&Music Club Porgy and Bess in Vienna and the Marina di Porto Reno in Ravenna, composed music for theater and cabaret, was on tour with his own bands Windup, Too much Orchestra, Chess 'n' Jazz, Winfried Gruber Quartet and played with Karl Ratzer, Wolfgang Puschnig, Gil Evans, Pietro Tonolo, Enrico Rava, … After an intense time in Italy, since his return in 2015 the music is again in the foreground. Steady gigs with different duos and trios at Café Amacord and, until March 2020, at Hotel Steigenberger, brought an expansion of the repertoire and some new pieces. Besides instrumental works, two songs, No need to run and It whispers, were created in cooperation with Karl Sayer, others follow an inspiration that originated in Italy in the 60s. Luigi Tenco, the singer of vanishing love, wrote the only non-original on this album, Angela, whose dramatic lyrics are countered by a relaxed 3/4 beat. A congenial band brings the compositions, which differ in form and content, easily to life, avoiding the overly obvious and condensing the single moods into the appropriate atmosphere. Klaus Dickbauer plays, with incomparable sound and timing, risk-joyful as ever and in Expectation he proves once again to be a master of the unexpected. Primus Sitter has unpacked his rock guitar, in the opener Babalotti the sun rises with his solo and wonderful are the sphere sounds in Very Old. Karl Sayer works tirelessly on the pulse of time and has a lyrical star hour on bowed bass in Sardinia, while Daniel Aebi, in his rhythmic incorruptibility, spreads out flying carpets under A.S.P. and Impromptu. In the middle the unmistakable voice of Winfried Gruber tells in Il Ghiacciaio of melting ice and threatening collapse, roams the shallows of love and sings about Easter Sunday in No sugar, without any sentimentality.
it’s windy, isn’t it?
Lineup:
Winfried Gruber piano, voice
Klaus Dickbauer altosax, clarinets
Primus Sitter guitar
Karl Sayer bass
Daniel Aebi drums
