Jochen Rueckert Quartet
- Mark Turner, tenor saxophone
- Lage Lund, guitar
- Matt Penman, bass
- Jochen Rueckert, drums, compositions
Jazz-center-of-the-universe-based, German-born drummer Jochen Rueckert presents his long time working band with legendary saxophonist Mark Turner.
The band’s repertoire contains surprisingly more optimistically swinging original compositions rich with chords than one would expect from a teutonic drummer, sprinkled with the occasional 3/8 bar for good measure.Jochen's deliberate avoidance of formal music education, albeit initially for budgetary reasons, provides a great lack of erudite nonsense in his writing and delivers modern jazz that a lot of people actually enjoy.
He's celebrating his 6th album as a leader ("With Best Intentions ”) and a decade of touring the globe with this quartet, one of the few bands able to retain a relatively stable line-up. The heavy touring schedule allows the material to be refined and re-imagined many times over; the band’s performances are proudly devoid of the gimmickry, social media conformity, and festival-pandering often and sadly increasingly observed in many of Jochen’s peers’ bands.
Besides his success with electronic music programmed under the alias "Wolff Parkinson White" as well as his series of ebooks aptly titled "Read the Rueckert- travel observations and pictures of hotel rooms", Jochen is also known for his work as a sideman in 12 years of the Marc Copland trio, the mid-2000 Kurt Rosenwinkel New Quartet, all of Nils Wogram's Root 70, recent work with the Melissa Aldana trio and Fred Hersch’s triofor booking please contact Jochen directly jochensucks [ at ] gmail.com
Jochen Rueckert Quartet plays "Obstacles" Blue Note Beijing
Jochen Rueckert Quartet plays "Purring Excellence" Smalls NYC
Jochen Rueckert Quartet plays Charlie Parker Cornelia street cafe (RIP) NYC
Press quotes
A few press quotes ( more here )
"there’s often a kindred and appealing combination of quirkiness and catchiness.... Excellent" Ottawa Citizen
"Melodies that have a habit of insinuating themselves deep in your head" Downbeat
"An exceptionally fine album" Jazzbreakfast
"a rarely heard warmth from the drums, that perfectly fits this timeless modern music"- Rondo
"It’s perhaps most engaging as a postbop soloists’ album, and the improv is very good indeed." The Guardian
"radiates an understated warmth and sophistication which is so very appealing." AP reviews
"Just outstanding. Highly Recommended." wondering sounddownload this one page as pdf