Peter Gall – Love Avatar [diverse, warm jazz on Compost Records]

Six years have passed since Peter Gall‘s sensational debut album “Paradox Dreambox” saw the light of day. What began as a experiment became a strong musical statement that met with an enthusiastic response in the jazz world and led to successful tours with a fantastic band. Now finally comes the long- awaited second album: on ‘Love Avatar'(Release Date: 27 September 2024) the Berliner-by-choice, who was born in Bad Aibling in Southern Bavaria. Six years is a long time. But it was important for Gall to continue growing as a musician and to have fresh visions before starting a new album. His diverse sideman work has sharpened his eye for the big musical picture during this time – whether as a stylistically confident accompanist for world-famous groups such as New York Voices or Take 6, playing classical jazz with the NDR Big Band or as the driving force behind the drums of Compost Records‘ flagship, the spiritual jazz group Web Web, including intensive work with its producers Roberto Di Gioia and Max Herre. Gall is now drumming in the first ranks of the German jazz scene and is also causing a stir internationally. Peter Gall‘s appointment as professor of jazz drums at the Mannheim University of Music and Performing Arts, one of the most important talent incubators for young jazz musicians in Germany, has made his view of music “even purer and more radical”, as he says. At the same time, Gall’s all-star line-up has constantly evolved as a band, breaking away from the classic bandleader-sideman pattern – the Peter Gall Quintet is more of a working band, everyone contributes their ideas, everyone is musically equal, no one should be the boss in the music.

Gall’s musical partners belong to the influential crème de la crème of the young and innovative European scene. For Gall, they were all his musical heroes long before the collaboration and are now among the most important ambassadors on their instruments: Wanja Slavin is one of the most unmistakable voices on the saxophone and is now also influencing the scene as a celebrated producer. Dutch shooting star Reinier Baas is one of the most outstanding and captivating guitarists of our time. The highly virtuoso and equally soulful Rainer Böhm on the keys is a brilliant soloist and also knows how to put a magical light on his fellow musicians as an accompanist. Matthias Pichler on double bass, one of Gall’s closest partners for many years, not only provides a solid and powerful foundation, but also catapults the band into other spheres with his groove euphoria and sheer boundless talent. With its strong characters, this supergroup forms a conspiratorial musical unit that develops a force that is hard to resist, both on stage and on the turntable. In 2021, Peter Gall‘s quintet won the prestigious BMW Welt Jazz Award.

Gall cites a book by Goeff Emerick about working with the Beatles, jazz from the late 60s onwards, Joe Henderson, Wayne Shorter, but also Messiaen, 12-tone music, Kendrick Lamar, Hermeto Pascoal and luminaries of electronic music such as Caribou or Flying Lotus as sources of inspiration for the ten pieces on the CD (or seven on the LP). The diversity of his musical listening habits is reflected in his compositions, and yet everything comes across in a completely unique guise.

“I usually started composing my earlier songs on the piano, which often gave them a melancholy mood right from the start.”

This time, the pieces often originated on the drums:

“I tried to start as naturally as possible for myself, on the instrument where I have to think the least: improvising on the drums”.

For the new album, he wanted a new approach:

He captured the moments with the greatest flow and the most trance-like states and used them as the starting point for the songs.

“It may be that this makes some pieces seem a little more compelling, perhaps even more danceable, although I’ve dared more harmonically and melodically than ever before”.

“They are such strong personalities, everyone does their own thing anyway. And the great thing is: I know that the guys always play the material much better than I could ever dream of. That’s magical for me and incredibly inspiring!”.

Gall doesn’t tailor his works to the band members, at least not consciously:

The new album ‘Love Avatar’ is Gall’s most elaborate and intense work to date. He has poured all his energy and passion for music into this project – a true “labor of love”. With ‘Love Avatar’, he wants to share love, because the world needs it more than ever. The album serves as an artistic representative, an avatar that carries this message into the world in an abstract way.

The album was mixed by Grammy winner and New York mixing icon Dave Darlington (Sting, Wayne Shorter) and therefore conveys the modern metropolitan sound that has had a formative effect on Gall since his years in the Big Apple. And why the release on Compost Records of all labels?

“I’ve recorded several albums for Compost with Web Web and got to know Michael Reinboth as a super open and euphoric label boss who knows no stylistic boundaries and is first and foremost just a music fan. That, the whole enthusiastic environment at Compost and the slightly different perspective on music than in the conventional jazz industry have always inspired me.”

‘Love Avatar’ by Peter Gall and his colleagues is richer, more complex, but also more focused and consistent than its predecessor. Mystical, hot-blooded and biting, multidimensional and, above all, with a great focus on rousing grooves. It is somehow not a pure jazz album, there are too many parallel worlds for that. Nevertheless, jazz, the unpredictable, blind interaction and the courage to take risks play the most important role in this conglomerate of post bop, fusion, baião, anthemic indie rock, melancholy synth spheres and hypnotizing beats.