The review columns should shut up! Follow the TikTok hashtag #jazztok and you’ll find lots of young people gathered around Miles, Herbie or Chick as if we were in 1969 and not 2023. That makes it almost a crime that the jazz dream team of Web Web & Max Herre, with their universalist nowstalgia, don’t appear here. Their first collaboration in 2021, »Web Max I«, already carried all the hallmarks of a viral album: psychedelics à la Sun-Ra, night train bebop à la Mulligan and pop appeal à la Alain Goraguer. »Web Max II« is more intimate. Starting with the key track »Fellow Travellers« and the exotic bow à la »La Planète Fantastique« (featuring Carlos Niño), the loose mood of the first album is expanded both modally and spiritually. On »Web Max II«, Roberto Di Gioia and his ensemble process (their own) quotes from yesterday, ciphers from today and inspirations from perhaps the best era of jazz, between 1960 and 1970. Once again, TikTok puts things into perspective: Yesterday, today, what does that actually mean in reality? It’s no coincidence that Max Herre features, but he is amenable and, well, full of Zeitgeist. Not as a rapper, though, but as a co-pianist, co-writer and, not least, a multiplier for a generation that no longer sees jazz as granddad’s music. The German Q-Tip? Could be. (The red, black and green cover by Jan Steins features a fitting 👋 emoji.) With the playing skills of real German jazz icons in the line-up and knowledge of samples from 1990s hip-hop, »Web Max II« finally brings the »Church Of Sound« concept and the former Brainfeeder bubble to Germany. The comparison is unfair, but Web Max just gives you butterflies.
Various Artists
hallo 22: DDR Funk & Soul von 1971-1981
Sony Music