It takes a lot for a double bass player to record his debut album as an unaccompanied solo improvisation. Robert Landfermann, born near Bonn in 1982, has taken this risk. He has titled his debut ‘Null’ (‘Zero’) only superficially. The title ‘Nullnummer’ refers to a magazine that has not yet been published but is already available to test its effect. It contains all the musical, aesthetic and technical qualities that have made Landfermann an internationally sought-after soloist ever since. He has an incredible mastery of the bow, he is concerned with expanding the sound towards noise on the one hand, but also towards melody on the other. You can sense his sense of adventure when he ventures into unknown territory. And yes, you also experience something of Landfermann’s first musical love: when the sixteenth-note chains clack furiously, his solo excursions also have something of heavy metal about them. At the Cologne Jazzweek, he plays a Baldantoni bass from 1858, made famous by Stefano Scodanibbio.
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