Silk Jazz – Into the unknown
Wu Wei – sheng & erhu
Ingolf Burkhardt – trumpet & flugelhorn
Florian Weber – piano

Katalognummer 21158

The birth of a magnificent new trio

It is rare for us to experience the birth of an ensemble that has not existed before in this form – SILK JAZZ is one such example. Wu Wei, Ingolf Burkhardt and Florian Weber are three outstanding musical personalities who have come together. Their music is created completely freely – no agreements, no notes, but pure listening to each other and interacting.  During a two-day recording session, over 90 tracks of freely improvised music were created. With “Into the unknown”, the trio succeeds in developing a musical narrative from the seemingly endless material, which conveys the naturalness of the interplay as well as the sense of adventure and enthusiasm for seeking and finding new colors.

The mouth organ Sheng is one of the oldest instruments in Chinese music. No one has made this instrument resound in such different contexts as Wu Wei. Together with trumpeter Ingolf Burkhardt and pianist Florian Weber, Wu Wei shows how much this 3,000-year-old musical instrument has its place in today's music.
Like no other, WU WEI has brought the Chinese mouth organ Sheng to the attention of the music world. Whether as a soloist with the Berlin Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Tokyo Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble intercontemporain or Ensemble Modern, in collaboration with the Chinese pipa virtuoso Wu Man or in a joint project with Holland Baroque, Wu Wei has significantly expanded the playing techniques and possibilities of the sheng, thus introducing the instrument to the international music scene. He has premiered more than 400 works, including 20 concertos for sheng and orchestra. His recording of Unsuk Chin's Sheng Concerto won the 2015 International Classical Music Award and the BBC Music Magazine Award. Thanks to his “extraordinary virtuosity” (The Guardian), his performance was one of the highlights of the 2014 BBC Proms.   

INGOLF BURKHARDT is one of Europe's most versatile jazz trumpeters. Since 1990, Burkhardt has been a permanent member of the NDR Bigband, with whom he has performed alongside jazz greats such as Quincy Jones, Al Jarreau, Lionel Hampton, Albert Mangelsdorff, Abdullah Ibrahim, Jimmy Smith, Wayne Shorter, Carla Bley and Bobby McFerrin. He recorded countless jingles and CDs in various formations and has thus probably struck exactly the right note – this is how jazz critic Mike Hennessey writes about his debut album 'Jazzed Friends': "...a refreshing liveliness, ... musicians who thoroughly enjoy what they do... ingenious, technically adept, rhythmically dynamic, musically adventurous." Or simply in Al Jarreau's words: "My Ingold!"

FLORIAN WEBER is rightly considered one of the most exciting jazz pianists of our time. In the studio and on stage, he has worked with Tomasz Stańko, Pat Metheny, Albert Mangelsdorff and Michael Brecker, among others. He has been awarded the Steinway Prize at the Montreux Jazz Festival, the ECHO Jazz and the WDR Jazz Prize. He came to the attention of Lee Konitz during an encounter in Cologne. In 2007 they recorded “Deep Lee” together, followed in 2012 by the live recording “Live at the Village Vanguard”. It was the first time that a German jazz pianist had made a live recording in the legendary club in New York. The same applies to Weber's performances with his own projects at the legendary New York Winterjazz, the Angel City Jazz Festival in Los Angeles and the Tokyo Jazz Festival. In 2020, Florian Weber became the first jazz musician to be awarded the Belmont Prize, the most highly endowed prize for contemporary music in Germany. Weber is “one of the most important musical innovators in contemporary music... His music naturally conveys the impression of unheard-of musical freedom.”