Jakob Manz & Johanna Summer - The Gallery Concerts I (Live) (2022)

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Jakob Manz & Johanna Summer - The Gallery Concerts I (Live) (2022)

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The Art in Music – Siggi Loch has had the clear objective to foster creative interaction between jazz and visual art ever since he founded ACT in 1992. As a producer who is also an art collector, he loves to bring not only topflight musicians together around him, but visual artists as well. Works by Philip Taaffe, Gerhard Richter, Martin Noël, Martin Assig and many more don’t just adorn album covers, they are also on display at the ACT Gallery in Berlin.

And it is there, in the gallery, before a small and select audience, that private musical evenings known as the Gallery Concerts take place. The works of art provide an inspiring visual backdrop for artists to try out new things. The house concerts are special, up close and personal; these extraordinary musical experiences are now being made available for a wider public to enjoy. On 27 October 2021 Jakob Manz and Johanna Summer were performing…

Manz and Summer are two of the most outstanding talents to emerge from the young German jazz scene in recent years. As a duo, their dialogue is intimate, open and scintil-lating. The saxophonist (b. 2001) has shown above all through his band the Jakob Manz Project that he is a passionate exponent of contemporary jazz-rock, playing “amazingly sophisticated, powerful, soulful-funky music with groove” (Jazzthing).

In partnership with Johanna Summer (b. 1995), he also shows his mastery of the quiet and the lyrical. German jazz icon Joachim Kühn admires his young pianist colleague, and is full of praise for her “music, so full of fantasy and beyond category”. With Summer, nothing is ever done for the sake of surface effect; it is all about the storytelling, and her fully-formed instincts for dramaturgy, dynamics and harmony. From the very first note, it is evident how perfectly matched Manz and Summer are. A magic and freedom emerge in the way they play together.

Inspired by the spirit of discovery, they have the courage to surrender to the moment and be totally spontaneous, fresh and carefree in their musicmaking. Any flaws just become part of the charm. Manz and Summer's “Gallery Concert” is a musical prologue: one can still only guess where and how this artistic relationship, still in its early stages, might develop.