Daniel Schmahl

Be prepared for a chat of a very special kind, for a conversation across time, as Johann Sebastian Bach comes alive as a passionate, gay and strikingly casual man of this day and age! 

The trumpeter and flugelhornist Daniel Schmahl and organist Johannes Gebhardt both have their musical roots in Leipzig and therefore feel a close bond to the music of the great Thomaskantor. 

On their 2005 album “BACK TO BACH” they discovered the ‘continent’ Johann Sebastian Bach from various angles: they arrived from the depths of romanticism, the coolness of jazz and the high spirits of performing with virtuosity. 

On their new album “Chattin’ with Bach” they now gather from this fertile soil the most colourful flowers and exquisite fruit. They are supported, inspired and encouraged by their friends Wolfram Dix (percussion) and Jan Hoppenstedt (bass). 

The music of the organ virtuoso, chapel master and cantor, Johann Sebastian Bach, is regarded as epitome of great, technically perfect and not improvable music. Nevertheless, or precisely because of that, it was already for its creator object of permanent revision and amendment, and remained just that for generations of composers and interpreters. Especially its rhythmic drive inspired many a jazz musician to an own version. Daniel Schmahl and the ensemble founded by him do not rest themselves upon this tradition though. As border crossers between classical music and jazz, as highly gifted vocalist on trumpet and flugelhorn, Daniel Schmahl manages a somnambulistic and stylistically confident advancement of Bach’s melodic pattern and formal art into the world of jazz. Whether he varies one of the most beautiful tunes, the “Bist du bei mir” from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, aggressively intensifies the primeval force of the Doric toccata for organ, or turns the final movement of the second Brandenburg concerto into a happily vibrant celestial concert: his access always is virtuosic, cantabile and imaginative. This is how you never heard Bach before – but this is how you shall always wish to hear him!