Press Zipflo Reinhardt Band
Excellent quartet with dense sound
“…The program: brisk swing and melting ballads, mostly standards, plus compositions by Zipflo Reinhardt with a distinct Latin flair. Latin jazz on the violin – that’s something! One of these pieces is called “From Time To Time.” Zipflo’s opening pizzicato is full-bodied and muted. Then the first strokes. The violin sings, sighs, dreams, the tone soft, silky, elegant. The word elegance always applies to Zipflo’s violin playing, even when he chases up the octave stairs a floor and a half or two at a time with a sprightly run to set down a flashing note.
German Klaiber and Matthias Daneck do a great job. There’s that swaying bass run that’s such a “stumble” that gives the whole thing its kick. Daneck hisses and clicks and whispers on the drums, turns the rhythm in a bass-drums passage for moments into the powerful rocking, very direct – but immediately it becomes filigree again when the humming violin enters again.
Frenzy, elegance, urgency, relaxation – a great piece. This is even more true for “Mistery Of The Milky Way”, a mixture of Cool Jazz and Samba and at the same time a meditation in swinging melancholy about lightness of being. Ziplo Reinhardt’s solo sweeps along, violin flashes, double stops, cascades, jumps, rubati – and everything as if conjured up, lightness instead of feat of strength also in the feeling.
Andy Herrmann on keys is excellent, and not just for his harmonic work. His solos are inspired, and here he and Zipflo do the “I’ll play you something, you play it back” bit. The audience gives bravos.
No less terrific: “You Don’t Know What Love Is,” a 1940s U.S. pop song made a standard by Miles Davis. Daneck begins with a drum intro on cymbals and skins, delicate, then full into the toms for moments – and bang! The band kicks in and swings with verve and intensity. Zipflo scats on the violin, it bubbles and whirls. Andy Herrmann mixes cascading piano runs with Hammond organ pads in the style of Jimmy Smith. The quartet sounds very tight, and not just here…”
With wonderful accents – Zipflo Reinhardt and band thrilled with their concert at the end of the Kehl Culture Summer
“The anniversary season of the Kehl Kultursommer came to an end on Saturday with the Zipflo Reinhardt Band. The expectations of the fans were met: the band offered first-class fusion jazz.
Sounding self-promotion is not his thing. Zipflo Reinhardt is not a man of big words. When the virtuoso wants to convey something, he prefers to pick up his violin and let it tell stories. Zipflo’s melancholic solos sounded again on Saturday on the lake stage in the Rosengarten.
(…) With apparent ease, Zipflo and band let the first bars of “Bossa Isis” swing – soft and smooth. The violin star presses his lips self absorbedly, lets his gaze wander; (…) The program includes catchy standards as well as original compositions, which are richly savored by the quartet. This evening shows once again that Zipflo Reinhardt is an exceptional artist, has developed his very own, sophisticated tonality and handwriting. The descendant of the legendary jazz guitarist Django Reinhardt thus scales a new level of the fusion jazz scale – one that goes beyond the conventional Gipsy sound at all times.
With subtle dissonances, thrown strokes, pizzicato notes and double-stop passages, the top jazz violinist repeatedly sets wonderful accents and counterpoints with his electrically amplified instrument. German Klaiber switches back and forth between electric bass and double bass and, together with the drums, forms the foundation that not only carries but nestles around the melodies. Andy Herrmann provides brilliant variety on the electric piano, occasionally garnished with a decorative carpet of sound.
After an hour and a half, the jazz reveries of Zipflo Reinhardt and band come to a climax with the original composition “Mystery of the Milky Way”, which heralds the end. Cool-jazzy, the musicians set off for the stars to uncover a mystery – a journey that gains increasing momentum with swirling cascades of sound and ends with an explosion of applause from the audience…”
More Press reviews
Jazz music at its best
“It was the first concert after a long time in this formation and although the four professional musicians had no time to rehearse the concert became a virtuoso jazz evening on the highest level. The band played jazz standards but also three original compositions by Reinhardt.
The pieces alternated from soft ballads to crisp improvisations to fast-paced solos that showed Reinhardt’s extraordinary technical skills on the electrically amplified acoustic violin. He used the full range of possibilities of this instrument, sometimes it sounded like a flute then again like a tenor saxophone. Each change of solos between violin, piano and drums was applauded by the audience…”
Great melodic arches carry the concert
“Full house for jazz in the Stiftsschaffneikeller. The Lahr cultural circle starts the new season with Zipflo Reinhardt and band. The almost 70-year-old jazz violinist, who is related – in a roundabout way – to the legendary guitarist Django Reinhardt, attracts a large fan base.
At times – for example on the classic Polka Dots and Moonbeams – Zipflo (who is actually baptized with the first name Josef) also plucks the strings, but generally his sound is characterized by a soft, sometimes elegiac string sound. Reinhardt’s metier is not energetic gypsy swing, but fusion jazz with large melodic arches. Andy Herrmann on e-pinao and grand piano…. is almost on an equal footing on stage. With Summertime as an encore, Reinhardt and band bid farewell to an enthusiastic audience after two hours of concert… ”
» Juliana Eiland-Jung / Badische Zeitung ®
It’s worth the listen – Zipflo Reinhardt and his quartet have opened the new Blue Notes music venue in Lahr.
“LAHR. Jazz, rock and fusion are to be offered live in the future at Blue Notes. On Friday evening, the new music venue in Lahr opened with a concert by jazz violinist Zipflo Reinhardt and his quartet, consisting of Andy Herrmann (piano), German Klaiber (bass) and Matthias Daneck (drums). Many music lovers from Lahr and the region came to the premiere (…) Whereby listening to Zipflo Reinhardt and his band was worthwhile. In quartet formation he offers beside swing standards like “My one and only love” increasingly own compositions. These show sometimes discreetly, sometimes more clearly, his preference for Latin rhythms, which combines wonderfully with Reinhardt’s round, supple tone and the unobtrusive, but always present elegance of his playing. The top violinist leads the sound into the highest registers via swinging loops or rhythmically set intervals, goes there into the quiet, with lyrical phrases that always tug a little at the soul, tips over into the playful with cascading runs that lead into nonchalant melancholy. Daneck and Klaiber provide a driving but never sweaty pulse, Andy Herrmann counters the violin solos with chordal balloons that condense only to melt away in pearly rivulets of sound. On tracks like “Mystery of the Milky Way,” flashes of Reinhardt’s fusion past shine through the Latin elegance and Latin melancholy, with expressive runs like little explosions…”