NIGHTHAWKS
Reiner Winterschladen (Trumpet) / Dal Martino (Bass) / Jörg Lehnardt (Guitar) / Jürgen Dahmen (Piano, Percussion) / Thomas Alkier (Drums)
In the course of their over 20-year career, the Nighthawks have created a subtly contoured aesthetic concept: music for travellers. Momentum and calm, denseness and sparseness, darkness and light – contrasts that all play a central musical role in the band’s work. Striving for reductionism, these scores of catchy songs evoke vivid atmospheric pictures, whose attraction lie often in their sense of yearning. The music heads of the quintet are Dal Martino (Bass, Keys, Guitar, Vocals) and Reiner Winterschladen (Trumpet, Flugelhorn). In the studio and on live gigs, they are accompanied by Jürgen Dahmen (Keys/Rhodes Piano/Percussion), Thomas Alkier (Drums) and Guitarist Jörg Lehnardt. By the way, Lehnhardt is not a new face on our stage: in 2014 he was part of our houseband at the Mallorca Smooth Jazz Festival.
The latest Nighthawks album was dedicated to the Boeing 707. For Martino, the 707 was “basically the first transporter of culture in a musical world that was becoming increasingly international”. For this CD, libertine Winterschladen – an avid proponent of improvised music – time and again had to restrict his trumpet playing to comply with Martino’s focus on reduction. These conflicting poles gave birth to numerous sound sketches which Martino considerably condensed. The resulting album consists of seven songs as well as the core track “707 Suite”: A powerful, at times edgy, work in four movements that even expands into psychedelic rock. As singer for another track – “Happy Days” – Martino invited Jeff Young on board, a musical partner of Donald Fagen (Steely Dan), Jackson Browne, Sting and many others. Young co-composed this track and is responsible for bringing some L.A. breeziness to the album.
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