Richard Koch Rays of Light

Richard Koch did it again! One of the most independent and unmistakable jazz trumpeters of our time is back with his fourth studio album. After three quartet records, he now presents us with a new work as bandleader in a new quintet: "Rays Of Light". It will be released on 04.07.2025 by Fun in the church.In terms of instrumentation and instrumentation, this acoustic work could have been performed in the 19th century. We hear Fabiana Striffler on violin, Valentin Butt on accordion, Andreas Lang on double bass, Nora Thiele on frame drums and Richard Koch on trumpet. However, Koch's compositions are interspersed with the transatlantic history of pop music over the last 150 years: from the American Folk Book to Internet radio - and back to the village festival in his adopted home of Wustermark, from where he can always travel quickly by regional train to the jazz capital of Berlin. At a time when the transatlantic relationship is threatening to tip politically, Koch's "Rays Of Light" are just the right thing to counter the whole madness culturally as a European musician. After all, it is particularly evident in music how our cultural DNA is similar and has always influenced each other. Just as all kinds of European folk and salon music, crossed with Afro-American and oriental influences - influenced by Christianity, Islam and voodoo - have given rise to a magical, earth-spanning, creole music: jazz. And we haven't even talked about Bach, Dylan or the Beatles yet. Koch's pieces in the year 2025 cannot be assigned to a specific region or tradition either: It is music that is just as suited to the Austrian Alps as it is to Provence or New Orleans. It is understandable in both urban and rural settings. It incorporates Balkan elements such as klezmer, we hear oriental percussion in it's origins, and the double bass adds a good dose of swing and bop from the nervous metropolises. The accordion offers plenty of harmonic scope for interpretation and the violin shares this with the trumpet, without getting lost in metaphysical speculation. Koch's compositions are as light-footed as they are colorful. As if he wanted to say: Listen up, dear people! All the music in the world is here, everything is good! But the lightness of his playing, which seems to rub off on his fellow players, remains his creamy secret. When Koch and his quintet leave the stage, everything quickly becomes as gray as it was before. So it's no wonder that successful rock & pop acts such as Peter Fox and the Beatsteaks, as well as musical mavericks like Nils Frahm and Jimi Tenor, have long sworn by Richard Koch's trumpet playing. Everyone likes to have this very special swag at their party. And party is indeed a good keyword. Because "Rays Of Light" is extremely party-ready. It is perhaps the most party-ready album in the Berlin jazz world in recent years. An album that would like to bring the whole quarrelling family back together again in these times, plagued as they are by ultra-diversity on the one hand and fear-filled, categorical, anti-woke rejection on the other. You can't think of many jazz musicians who can pull music off their sleeves as easily as Richard Koch and his "Rays Of Light". Musicians who really aspire to be understood by everyone out there. Without being camp or kitsch. This instrumental jazz-folk music is celebrated with great seriousness and full concentration. With great passion and infectious joy of playing! Chapeau!