Silent Explosion Orchestra by Kevin Naßhan - Prologue

It's like a good movie. Long before the peripeteia, the entirety of the story gradually builds up. Starting, often, with a prologue, some kind of introduction, or from a literary perspective, a foreword. This provides information about the upcoming story, setting or work. In the field of journalism, this is referred to as an editorial or, as in the film mentioned above, also as an opening credits. In this situation, one can speak of a first, big step in this context. A step taken by the Saarland composer, big band leader and drummer Kevin Naßhan, brilliant and impressive at the same time.

Coordinating a 17-piece big band, two singers and additional strings on his debut album and directing it as a drum-playing beater is something special, but then also acting as a composer and creating this production  and uniting the best musicians of a generation of an entire federal state is very impressive. The result of this process reaches its climax so far in January 2018 with the new JAZZNARTS RECORDS release: Silent Explosion Orchestra by Kevin Naßhan – Prologue.

The entirety of the album is encompassed by the first and title track, Prologue. A reflection of the entire concept: vocal parts, solo parts for strings and brass, a very colorful intro with a transition to a jazzy-groovy part before the finale has a fast, hymn-like character. Just like the second piece on the production, both written by the bandleader, Rainfall. Here the story begins to go into detail, another piece of the whole takes shape. The picture of a rainy autumn day is painted. The brush solo is accompanied by rippling chords from the strings. A romantic melancholy and a strong imagery.

With two arrangements of the global hits Englishman in New York by Sting and Both Sides Now by Joni Mitchell, Kevin Naßhan shows the versatility of his production. Both pieces come from the world of pop music, although they were already recorded by pure jazz musicians back then. The story of the album continues to be written. He is supported in particular by two guest soloists. Johannes Müller with his track Great Expectations and Philipp Schug with Koulikoro, who are featured on the album with their own compositions. As events continue, Naßhan takes on another piece of music history as inspiration. Road to Hell is based on the tone sequence of the well-known guitar riff from AC/DC's Hell's Bells, which has been reshaped with new rhythms and metrics and thus written as a completely new piece. Before the epilogue brings the initially painted picture to completion and concludes the Saarlander's debut work.