Late Night Lab 2

Late Night Lab

Creation

Jazzfest Berlin emerges as a dynamic platform for multi-discipline collaboration with Late Night Lab, as three interrelated projects with overlapping membership. T(r)opic, a nonet co-led by trumpeter Roz Mazurek and electric guitarist Julien Desprez, who were both prominently featured in Jazzfest Berlin 2018, was originally commissioned by Sons d’hiver in early 2019. The ensemble forms the core of this collaborative extravaganza, but during the 120-minute performance two Brazil-steeped sub-groups of the leaders – Mazurek’s São Paulo Underground and Desprez’ COCO – will be part of the larger structure. As with the Jazzfest Berlin’s other Late Night Lab on Friday, the musicians will cycle through numerous breakout groupings, whether those are pre-existing ensembles or new constellations. While the leaders will use a variety of composed materials throughout the evening, the real aim is to produce a kaleidoscope of fluid improvisation, both in terms of what each musician plays and how the various sections flow into one another or cause productive disruption. In addition to the musicians and dancers, there will be an elaborate LED light component triggered by sounds on stage, adding another sensory layer to the experiment.

T(r)opic

German premiere

Chicago trumpeter Rob Mazurek and Parisian guitarist Julien Desprez forged a strong bond after meeting and playing together in the transatlantic partnership called the Bridge. T(r)opic, commissioned by Sons d’hiver in early 2019, is their most ambitious endeavour thus far, a multi-discipline blur of movement and sound featuring some of the world’s most distinctive improvisers. The ensemble builds its performances from a mixture of graphic scores, composed themes, and texts written by Mazurek and Desprez, some of which are projected as 3D transparencies – audience members will be given 3D glasses to experience them fully . “The written material is set up as chorales, melodic interval structures to be played and improvised utilizing special harmonies and shapes,” says the trumpeter. The musicians have worked together in many different constellations over the years, developing a keen intuition amongst one another that allows them to weave infinite possibilities and combination from the multi-partite score, but as an ensemble T(r)opic privileges pure sound and texture as its primary expression, enfolding shards of melodic counterpoint, extreme dynamic leaps, and electric physicality within the shape shifting din.

Julien Desprez Acapulco 'Redux' on  YouTube

São Paulo Underground

During an extended residence near Brazilian Amazon in the early 2000s, the Chicago cornetist and composer Rob Mazurek formed this elastic alliance with two of São Paulo’s most eclectic and flexible musicians: percussionist Mauricio Takara and keyboardist Guilherme Granado. Working together for more than a decade the trio has achieved a sublime synthesis of various traditions, whether the investigative global jazz pioneered by Don Cherry or the street rhythms of Pernambuco. The music is guided by a nifty conflation of terse melody, rich layers of electronic textures, and modern cadences including hip-hop breakbeats or sashaying samba grooves, imbued with a wide-open improvisational practice that enables all manner of sly code-shifting. On the trio’s most recent album “Cantos Invisíveis”, the ensemble has reached for new sounds, whether cycling melodic shapes borrowed from the Far East or the delicate cosmic pop of the Beach Boys, all gorgeously enfolded into a heady sonic stew that retains an inexorable sense of motion even at its most fragile.

São Paulo Underground on  Soundcloud

COCO (reduced version)

German premiere

French guitarist Julien Desprez conceived this multi-discipline project as a dynamic collision of styles and sound. Contemporary dancers Pauline Simon and Ana Rita Teodoro, who have been trained in the traditional Brazilian dance coco – a dynamic folk tradition from the country’s northeastern region, born out of slavery and marked by a rhythmic manner of stomping –, perform against and with a decidedly contemporary onslaught of sound produced by Desprez’ effects-larded electric guitar noise and the abstract, friction-based percussion of Julien Loutelier; a barrage of glitched-out, choppy motion and texture seemingly at odds with the ancient choreography happening simultaneously. Amplification transforms the gestures of the dancers into music, while the physicality of the electric sound skitters in the space like an invisible yet visceral presence, rendering moot and distinction between musician and dancer.

T(r)opic (PT / DK / SWE / BR / USA / FR / NO) German premiere

Susana Santos Silva trumpet
Mette Rasmussen sax
Isabel Sorling vocals, electronics
Lotte Anker sax
Mauricio Takara e-percussions
Gerald Cleaver drums
Ingebrigt Håker Flaten bass
Rob Mazurek trumpet, cornet, electronics
Julien Desprez e-guitar

São Paulo Underground (BR / USA)

Mauricio Takara e-percussions
Guilherme Granado keys, electronics
Rob Mazurek trumpet, cornet, electronics

COCO (reduced version) (FR / PT) German premiere

Julien Desprez e-guitar
Julien Loutelier percussion
Pauline Simon dance, performance
Ana Rita Teodoro dance, performance

Mathieu Constans 3D video maker / lighting designer