Eight Cylinder Bigband
“An almost explosive technique with intense and clearly structured improvisations”
For his latest release – Eight Cylinder Bigband – German pianist & hammond organist Matthias Bublath puts his musical passions into practice on the largest scale yet.
But it’s not just the big band line up which gives this musical engine such torque and pulling power; he’s built it around an instrument which is almost an orchestra in its own right: the Hammond organ.
Taking care of all songs and arrangements himself, the musical spectrum ranges from blues and gospel to soul, funk and Afro-Caribbean. The thing that ties everything together? It really grooves.
A one-time winner at the legendary Montreux Solo Piano Competition, the 41-year-old German spent more than a decade in the US,
first studying at Berklee & Manhattan School of Music and then gigging on the New York scene. He played with modern greats like
Mike Clark, Zach Danziger, Tim Lefebvre and Obed Calvaire, before heading back to his native
Munich.
A restless asset on the German scene, he’s released 11 albums to date, as well as working as a keyboard
powerhouse with a host of high-profile for soul, blues and folk artists.
The Eight Cylinder Bigband has been a long standing goal of his and, with sponsorship from Initiative Musik,
he’s put together his dream line up for this passion project.
At the heart of the band is the rhythm section; three players who
have been inseparable from Bubblath for two years now. Patrick Scales on bass & Christian Lettner on drums are both longstanding sidemen
for Klaus Doldingers Passport band, whilst Ferdinand Kirner is perhaps the most sought-after guitarist in Germany at the
moment.
Some of the best big band soloists on the Southern German scene make up the brass section, with special guest, rising-star
trumpeter Takuya Kuroda completing the line up.
