Vertreibung aus dem Paradies

Vetreibung aus dem Paradies

[Expulsion from Paradise]

Bringing together an unusual set of instruments, Vertreibung aus dem Paradies can sound unusually unjazzy at times. Sometimes, Fee Stracke's compositions and violin- and clarinet motives allude to the playfulness of the romantics, sometimes they sound like the dramatic scores from 1950s movies. They make us think of nordic folksongs and of the dreamful fairgrounds of our childhood. With a fair amount of self-irony, pianist and composer Fee Stracke admits to her affinity to kitsch. She lets her tunes have their schmalzy and cheesy moments. However, this kitsch is that of the kind whose charms we cannot resist; it takes us on a trip through the images music can paint in our minds. Fee Stracke and her band combine those supposedly unjazzy elements with grooves and free improviation, with Latin American folklore, with a nordic-melancholic atmosphere to create a very special kind of contemporary European jazz music.