TAU5, Janning Trumann 4, Matthew Halpin’s Frown Town, The Resonators and more warm up Winterjazz 2022

Usually, the two-day Winterjazz festival in Cologne will welcome a bustling crowd, attracted by its free admission, to catch some of the North Rhine-Westphalia state’s finest rising artists. Close to the edge, this public form was switched to a filmed event, subsequently presented as an online series, Winterjazz In Space. It offered triple-act helpings daily, with a small gathering of promoters and festival organisers allowed into Stadtgarten, one of Cologne’s chief alternative music venues. There were even a few stray journalists present.

The most strikingly innovative band of the weekend was TAU5, featuring energised tenor saxophonist Philipp Gropper and the contrasting sonic interferences of keyboardist Philip Zoubek and electronicist Ludwig Wandinger. Their dragging (and drugging) noir was shot through with futurist sleaze, sometimes with slowed motion electro-splurts decelerating as aerated bagpipe sounds. Zoubek favoured organ-type settings, so it was Phibes versus The Blob, between him and Wandinger. TAU5 gobbled up every valuable second of their allotted 20-minute set, ranging from spacey ambience to a Babylon Berlin-styled chase-theme, its tension complete with crackly megaphone.

The Janning Trumann 4 featured a slightly unusual line-up, their leader’s trombone joined by piano, electric bass and drums. It’s not often that a ‘bone takes centre stage like this, but Trummann (pictured above) delivered another one of the weekend’s finest sets. His soloing was forceful and melodic, sometimes sensitively muted. Bassist Florian Herzog manipulated effects and pianist Lucas Leidinger turned to his synthesiser, crafting a well-balanced electroacoustic blend. Robust themes powered forward, as the leader also utilised his electro-wah-wah pedal, one number sounding very much like a Bad Plus tune, complete with emphatic piano riffing.

The Dublin tenor saxophonist Matthew Halpin has lately been living in Cologne, his band Frown Town giving another one of the weekend’s most impressive performances. Besides the fine playing, Halpin was particularly skilled as a composer, his tunes possessing a highly individual character. It was as if their themes were transposed from a personal conversation, always changing their rhythmic location, switching emphasis as if syllables were being stressed, via the musical realm. Partnered by electric guitar and bass, with drums, Halpin shaped a style that seemed to emerge from the classic British prog jazz period of the 1970s, recalling acts such as Soft Machine, National Health and In Cahoots. Parts coiled around each other, with softly serrated sparkle-effects guitar, courtesy of Hanno Busch. Halpin furthered the spoken quality by burring his horn sound via lip-chew variations on his reed. The quartet could gently dismantle a tune, suggesting moods, events or emotions as they loped with tentative steps. Frown Town executed a wiry dance, telling stories without words.

The Resonators played close to the weekend’s finish, climaxing down in Stadtgarten’s Jaki basement. This club is named after departed Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit, and if looking carefully, we can find the tiny screen embedded in one of its walls, running an eternal loop of this master Cologne sticksman. The Resonators elected to use their 20 minutes to segue through a single semi-improvisation that showcased many of the tactics that they usually employ at length, dominated by a fearsome groove-leviathan free jazz, but also dropping in an incongruously sensitive flute solo from hornman Frank Gratkowski. Their drums, bass and freak-guitar roster facilitates a roiling psychedelic free-form patchwork of soul-rock, funk, hip hop basslines and abstract howling filth from both guitar and alto saxophone. Leaving an oily slime trail, they made a sharp tempo change down to crawling, as the phased cries climaxed.

The Daniel Tamayo Quintett, the NAU Trio and trumpeter Heidi Bayer’s Korsh were also among the weekend’s highlights. Winterjazz was presented by NICA, a local organisation devoted to raising the profiles of emerging artists in the Cologne area. The Winterjazz In Space series can be found online at stadtgarten.de/media