Brass Mask

Their band name is synonymous with their attachment to the music of marching bands from New Orleans and the fantasy of the plumed masks of Mardi Gras Indians. But it’s not only the brass feeling in the birthplace of jazz that inspires the band’s saxophonist and mastermind Tom Challenger. Eight representatives of the young London scene associated with the “Loop Collective” creative pool – which still remains to be discovered in Germany – impressively demonstrate how far one can lean away from the jazz canon. With its striking mixture of blues’ elements and compact contemporary arrangements, the octet ties traditional lines to the shimmering sound tableaux of musicians like Gil Evans as well as close interweavings of form and structure in work by the likes of Henry Threadgill. Forceful unisons, contrapuntal webs of voices and a stack of unchecked energy for the Berlin Jazz Festival finale!

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