Heinrich von Kalnein // Horst-Michael Schaffer & JBBG Smål feat. Peter Lehel Gran Riserva

Music at the pulse of time. For over twenty years, the internationally acclaimed JBBG - Jazz Bigband Graz has been making a name for itself as a jazz orchestra with its ingenious and unique sound, which is somewhere between jazz, pop, fusion, minimal, world music elements and jazz music attitude.

In any case, it is far removed from the dusty attributes of traditional big band music.
JBBG Smål - GRAN RISERVA is the core of this JAZZ BIGBAND GRAZ and consists of the two long-standing band leaders and the rhythm section - the JBBG in pocket format, so to speak. The music is fed by the compositional world of the two bandleaders and the newest ensemble member, Armenian keyboardist Karen Asatrian. Highly varied and colorful, it combines jazz, pop, fusion and world music with expressive melodies and plenty of room for musical surprises and large musical arcs.

The saxophonist, composer and arranger Peter Lehel studied at the music academies in Stuttgart and Budapest. He works as a musician, composer and arranger with renowned jazz musicians and internationally renowned classical musicians. His compositional output includes works for pure jazz formations (saxophone quartet/quintet, jazz ensemble, big band) as well as crossover projects for chamber music ensembles and orchestras.

Concert tours have taken him to almost every continent. With his projects Peter Lehel Quartet, Finefones Saxophone Quartet, When Future Smiles, Jazz Ensemble Baden-Württemberg and the group Saltacello, he can be heard regularly at jazz festivals and jazz clubs in South Korea, China and Taiwan.

He was awarded the Jazz Prize of the State of Baden-Württemberg (1997) and twice received the German Record Critics' Award (2000, 2006). His latest recording "Coltrane String Ballads" is currently on the longlist of the German Record Critics' Award. In 2004 he received a scholarship from the Baden-Württemberg Art Foundation, to whose jury he was appointed in 2008. In 2007 he became a visiting professor at the Shenyang Conservatory of Music in China.

Line-up: Heinrich von Kalnein (sax, reeds); Horst-Michael Schaffer (voc, flh); Peter Lehel (sax); Karen Asatrian (keys, p); Thomas Wilding (b); Tom Stabler (dr)