Musicians: Nils Wogram tb, Simon Nabatov p
Recording date: December 2002
Recording place: Loft, Köln
Simon Nabatov played in the Nils Wogram Quartet, and Nils Wogram plays in the Simon Nabatov Quartet. The only logical consequence for the two was to found a duo in 1997. Following the premier in the Loft (Cologne), another successful concert followed at Moers New Music Festival ‘97. Then there were two collaborative albums and now the long-awaited third work of the duo is appearing on the market. It was recorded at the site of their first concert, at the Loft in Cologne.
Both began their careers when they were very young. Nils Wogram played in Bujazzo in 1991, won a contest for young musicians ("Jugend musiziert") as a solo trombonist and was featured in numerous bands in the subsequent years (incl. Jazzkantine). Simon Nabatov began to play classical piano at the age of three, but soon turned his attention to jazz. Among other things, he won the contests of Keyboard Magazine/Berklee College of Music and the International Great Jazz Pianist in Jacksonville, Florida. In addition to teaching duties, he played with big names such as Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Kenny Wheeler, Barry Altschul, Vladimir Tarasov, Mark Feldman, Phil Minton and many more.
"The meeting of the vital-virtuoso keyboard dramatist and persistent crossover artist between styles and areas of expression, who was born in Moscow, grew up in the USA and has lived in Cologne for the past 10 years, with the German trombone star Nils Wogram [...] demonstrates: this marvelous pianist with various formal means ranging between sensitive-lyrical sound figurations and emotional and aggressively whirling cascades of sound and chord buildups knows how to play convincingly and skillfully while steeping everything with a background of a perceptible pulse"
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