When rock and pop musicians play jazz, things can go horribly wrong. However, Sven Regener, Richard Pappik and Ekki Busch have already proven that they can do it. And now they show it again.
It was far too good (and far too successful) for just a one-time fling: the cool jazz album “Ask Me Now”, with which the singer, trumpeter and bestselling author Sven Regener surprised the music world in 2021.
Again together with Richard Pappik (drums) and Ekki Busch (piano), two friends from his popular German pop band Element Of Crime, the Bremen-born Berliner by choice now presents the successor “Things To Come” – and again the unconventional works Approach in trio.
He lets his trumpet shine
This time Regener (61) sings no sound in the ten pieces – but anyway he “always found the trumpet to be my nicer voice”, like the German musician and writer (“Mr. Lehmann”, “Glitterschnitter”) who came from punk Press agency said about his jazz debut. The brightly shining (and once again brilliantly played) wind instrument therefore gets a lot to do in the now selected standards by Thelonius Monk, John Coltrane, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis.
Regener, who is always brash and likeable, speaks of a “very rustic trio” with Pappik and Busch – and a “very punk approach”. And he’s still happy about the jazz idea, which at first seems a bit quirky: “The good thing about the concept is that we play pieces that others have written, that maybe have been recorded thousands of times – but we play them with ours Sound, our way, with our means. (…) Basically something like “James Last”, only completely different.»
“Ask Me Now” went straight to the top of the German jazz charts and number 15 in the pop hits in March 2021. Also «Things To Come» you can hear the fun and at the same time the seriousness of the three musicians every second. Even if there is no surprise effect – this at the same time wild and wonderfully warm-hearted record hits the heart again (especially in times of double and triple crisis). Now, after all the Corona difficulties, one would like to finally see the jazz project Regener Pappik Busch live.
