Metromara - Self-Portrait in Twelve Colors (2016)

Metromara is her band. 'Metro stands for the metropolis of Amsterdam, where we have gathered together, and Mara for me,' explains Mara Minjoli. And the title of their debut CD is program. This alone proves that the singer wants to fulfill her dream of a cross-genre music without puristic dogmas. The best of what you like - for the 29-year-old born in Bochum is really a matter of course. "I like Stevie Wonder, Charles Mingus, Erykah Badu, Lauryn Hill, Carmen McRae, Joni Mitchell, and the Australian band Hiatus Kaiyote, I'm based on traditional jazz, soul, hip hop, R? N? B and electronics. Each element in itself has influenced me musically, inspired and inspired. There is nothing I want to exclude. " What else is there left for anything else to do? To put it mildly, there are already enough admonitory examples, which went well with their stylistic cabbage and beet stew. But Metromara, this congenial international sextet, uses an equally simple and clever formula. Where else could such a thing work better than in the great artistic freedom of the jazz corridor? After all, jazz can now (almost) everything, at least from the perspective of the Jazz thing Next Generation, an illustrious series of young sound researchers, in the Metromara now presents the 65th chapter of an equally varied as well as individual reading of this open-ended musical genre. Grooves between nonchalant headnick beats and improvisational playfulness, smoothe basslines and distorted soundscapes over a frog are just as much a part as the sound, as are exciting melodies that wind themselves in incessantly, but never lose the threads. How such a thing can work? Through a clear view, which Mara Minjoli also keeps in the greatest confusion, her fascinating undogmatic way to compose, as well as a successful selection of instrumentalists, to like-minded people, which can not be pushed any further by their urge for musical self-realization. The enthusiasts of Metromara have long known that everything has taken its course in Amsterdam. At the conservatory there were the Luxembourgian Jerôme Klein (Synthesizer / Keys), Pol Belardi (bass) and Pit Dahm (drums), New Zealander Oliver Emmitt (trombone) and Cologne Constantin Krahmer (piano). "We started out as acoustic as most other jazz bands," recalls Mara Minjoli, who studied jazz singing at the Folkwang University in Essen from 2007 to 2012 and was awarded the Folkwang Jazz Prize in 2010. 'But at some point, Pol began to change our music with the groove of his electric bass. He and Jerome introduced a lot of exciting elements and today, alongside the trombone of Oliver, are the electronic part of our performance. In addition, there is the rich Rhodes sound of Constantin. I just stand there. Likewise, I like the old stuff, standards and melodies. ' This is the reason why the bandleader always has to balance the sound exactly, not to push the pendulum too strongly into the one or the other direction. Mara Minjoli is animated by the desire to build viable bridges on which as many as possible can feel comfortable. Something for jazz lovers, who are not yet fully frozen in the ice of purism, but also for pop gourmets who like to listen a little more closely. Modern Old School, so to speak. Or Amsterdam, the Ruhr, New York, Montreux and Detroit simply superimposed.

Tracklist:

01. Cycle
02. I'll Rise
03. Night Rider
04. Fly
05. The Beast Is Loose (Frog Intro)
06. Frog
07. Beauty Slave
08. Tumbling Steps
09. Flipside
10. Autumn
11. As Our Minds Arise
12. Heart over Head

Personnel:

Mara Minjoli - singing & composition
Oliver Emmitt - Trombone
Constantin Krahmer - Piano
Jerome Klein - Synthesizer / Keys
Pol Belardi - bass
Pit Dahm - Drums