After the success of the production Deuxième Bureau (JHM 205) by Georg Ruby & Michel Pilz, the unfortunately
deceased Luxembourg master of the bass clarinet, Georg Ruby, one of the most varied pianists
in this country, has implemented another project that is characterized by free improvisation.
Ruby has put together a trio including Saarbrücken drummer Daniel Weber (Georg Ruby VILLAGE
ZONE: JHM 262 and 279) saxophonist and synthesizer artist Andreas Steffens from Erkelenz. In the
spontaneous music of The Morenco Project, which was created without any structural guidelines, the
three musicians prove how varied improvisational music can be. This is especially true when played by
seasoned jazz musicians who value the structures of new music, grooves, as well as traces of traditional
jazz standards.
The trio Ruby/Weber/Steffens develops its motifs, rhythms and structures in a flowing interaction.
Without following fixed forms, harmonics or specific tempos, sounds and grooves arise purely in the
moment of their creation. They work with various sound alienations: prepared piano with pebbles,
magnets, rubber material, and percussion utensils such as strings, skins, and metal cymbals. Andreas
Steffens' saxophone with a modular synthesizer and oscillators, tape loops and feedback creates a color
that is extremely complex, energetic and versatile. The trialogues of The Morenco Project continually
give rise to new, exciting improvisational impulses, sometimes subtle, sometimess expansive. But the
structure of the sound continually transforms it in unexpected ways.
Georg Ruby is on the move: as a solo pianist, with his trio VILLAGE ZONE and as head of the Cologne
Blue Art Orchestra and has been running the label JazzHausMusik for many years. Daniel Weber is represented
at JHM with, among other things, his solo production Dramatis Personae (JHM 277) and his
radio play Wege ins Innen (engl.: Ways into the Interior) (JHM 315). Andreas Steffens played with musicians
such as Branford Marsalis, Steve Coleman and Bob Berg and is involved in the independent Dutch
jazz scene around the Bim Huis Amsterdam.