The two of the had already performed before large audiences in Lahore, in Karachi and in Islamabad in 2005. Whilst here in this country, they have actually made themselves scarcities. But now Uli Lenz and Francois Jeanneau have issued their first album together, an album that everyone sought and found each other. The sensitive and supple soprano saxophone of the can take pleasure in. The German pianist and the French saxophonist Frenchman, the 72-year-old Free Jazz pioneer draws on the resources of a career that has gone on for over half a century already. Lenz counterpoises motifs that are sometimes steeped in the blues and sometimes playfully intricate melodies played with his powerful stroke on the piano keys. In the course of which no quarrel over form and structure ensues. The dialogue approaches a climax between form and freedom, between composition and communication, with shifting – scarcely noticeable – boundaries. Diverse musical experience and personalities prevail here in a unique fashion. Pieces by either composer are juxtaposed here, each with equal prerogatives. They combine and translate the rhythm and the power of both European metropolis with their respective life styles: Paris and Berlin, the domiciles of the two musicians.

In: Jazzpodium, by Reiner Kobe. Translated by Aparajita Koch