Lo & Behold - Mrs. Shrill's Mindblowing Experience
CD - Sheet Music

SKU: M7.INT-33872

Composed by Lo & Behold. 2 CDs. 2 CDs. Duration 85'. Intuition #INT 33872. Published by Intuition (M7.INT-33872).

UPC: 750447338722.

'Lo & Behold', the name of Berlin-based saxophonist Sandra Weckert's group, refers to an old blues line, meaning so much as 'come and look with astonishment'. One can be astounded by Sandra Weckert in numerous ways. When a saxophonist 'says a mouthful', it doesn't necessarily have to be a negative thing: the more he has in his mouth, the more power he can put into his horn. In any case, Sandra is fed up with the traditional jazz thing. Nonetheless, she is not one of those who claim that jazz died with the 20th Century. On the contrary, with new wind in her sails, she is shaking up jazz from the bottom up. Jazz purists already have Sandra Weckert in their sights. In some circles she is persona non grata, because she has dared to put her finger where it hurts and points out how jazz in Germany has been driving away audiences for years. She holds up a mirror in front of the academics, parodies conventional styles, loves provoking and exaggerating. Instead of avoiding clichés, she builds them together in unusual, often excessive ways, so that she may someday go down in musical history as the Eulenspiegel of German jazz. 'I'm not inventing any new tones or playing anything that hasn't already been;' notes Sandra Weckert. 'I love jazz, but see and parody the things that, in my opinion, are going wrong. Especially in Germany there are many such things, and I rub other people's nose in it. They should finally learn to laugh at their own situations and mistakes, instead of endless analysis and searching for pedagogical concepts.' For this and other reasons, Sandra Weckert deals with the state of jazz in Germany not only musically, but also with an audio-play on an extra CD. Sandra Weckert is not only Germany's most argumentative musician, but is also a master of placing herself in the spotlight.. She knows that it is no longer sufficient to play her horn with virtuosity. No, she also does everything possible to get in the public eye. Her debut album, 'Way out West', a self-confident homage to Sonny Rollins, reaped accusations of blasphemy from those who are against what she's doing. The consciously provocative title of her second album, '50 Sandra Weckert Fans Können Sich Nicht Irren' ('50 Sandra Weckert Fans Can't Be Wrong') sounded like a bristling 'Now I'm gonna show you a thing or two.' The stylish title of her third CD, 'Bar Jazz' is misleading. The listener is confronted by a bombardment of story telling and aggressiveness. But it was on her fourth album, 'Lo & Behold' that she finally convincingly unified her idealistic demands and the playful reality of her musical stance. 'More ideas developed from the first three albums. It's like by the sorcerer's apprentice. I can't get rid of the spirits that I've summoned. My first compositions arose from mainstream jazz, even if it doesn't sound like it. Later I brought more elements into it, so that I was able to crown the new album with even more fresh ideas. The more differentiated my music is and the more often I knock the listener off the track that I put him on, the more fun I have.' Sandra Weckert is an iconoclast; her new CD is a labyrinth of styles and insidiously laid tracks. She is searching for eclecticism, leaves jazz impudently behind, but always finds a way back to mother jazz through the backdoor. The survivors in jazz of the 21st Century are those who can place their own accents and do not have to blindly relegate themselves to the rule of tradition. 'Jazz is a musical style that I like very much. But I hardly ever go to jazz concerts unless the musicians really have something to communicate. I find the normal jazz thing rather destitute. It's always the same old thing. A pretty woman whispering jazz standards, like they've been doing it for the last 70 years, and it is even worse when it comes to the instrumentation. I look in vain for musicians with charisma. Instead, jazz is dominated by the musicians' egos. All too often jazz is boring intellectual diarrhea that I'm not even interested in.' It would be wrong to think that Sandra Weckert has a lack of ego. She radiates self-confidence, which comes across in her music. Sandra Weckert's personality and her music are in unity. But what counts is what her personal criteria hold up to those musicians, from whose egos she wants to separate herself. 'On stage we are a band and not five people who each want to go in their own direction. What's important is that the music is transported as it is written. I may be the one who writes the music and announces the songs on stage, but I am also just a cog in the wheel in terms of the band. My ego is not as important as the music's ego.' 'Lo & Behold' frees the listener from the mental state in which he currently finds himself and confronts him with something he wasn't expecting. Sandra Weckert also wants to confront herself with new things. As such the story of her four albums is also the story of her personal growth toward perfection. Sandra Weckert never tries to sound more perfect than she is and accepts her weaknesses as much as her strengths. But her command of them improves. 'My earlier pieces were written out of anger. These pieces conjured up very strong emotions in me. I defined myself through this anger. In the course of the last year, I noticed that I didn't need this anger any more. I no longer have to prove myself to my critics and can go about writing melodies. That has set the course for the future.'.