The M-Project - Movin’ On (CD)

Hamburg jazz guitarist Bernard Fichtner presents a new album and offers rare insights into his "music laboratory."
Developing a unique profile that makes you listen more closely – this is the goal pursued by Hamburg jazz guitarist Bernard Fichtner with his new album Movin'on (Bernard Fichtner's M-Project). He has clear ideas about how this can work. "I always succeed in creating something unique when the music takes on a comprehensible form," he emphasizes. "On Movin' On, I chose predominantly non-complex, symmetrical forms."
The sound: The eight pieces feature numerous ostinati motifs, which Fichtner develops further and garnishes with sparingly used spherical effects. This creates a warm and lyrical sound reminiscent of the European soundscape of the style-defining ECM label.
The musicians: Bernard Fichtner is characterized by an unpretentious style. His solos develop their flow from the stories they tell. They interact and react to the rhythmic, dynamic, and melodic accents set by his fellow musicians.
Fichtner chose the Hanover pianist Markus Horn because his harmonic and melodic sensibility enables him to pick up and continue the melodic lines of the guitar.
The pulsating rhythm of Hamburg drummer Heinz Lichius is a great enrichment for the overall sound thanks to his varied playing.
Giorgi Kiknadze, also from Hamburg, underpins this foundation with a double bass that doesn't limit itself to a basic tonal framework, but transcends the harmonic essence by eloquently expanding and enriching its lines. Trained at the Berklee College of Music in Boston, USA, Fichtner worked for years on various musical productions, toured with artists such as Israeli singer Esther Ofarim, wrote film scores, worked as a studio musician, and taught. He masters the entire spectrum of different styles, is equally influenced by rock and funk, creates driving grooves, explores fusion, soul, and rhythm and blues—and ultimately returns to jazz. Most recently, with the CD "Points of View," he introduced modern jazz fusion and nu-jazz sounds to the world.
Lothar Trampert wrote about this in Gitarre & Bass: “The music is above all expressive and has a sentimental, brittle beauty that never makes you think of any other well-known genre great.”
How it works: What makes this project special isn't just the music. It's also the rare insights into his working process that Fichtner provides in a video interview (see homepage). He shows how a collection of short musical phrases develops into an idea, which he then continues and expands. He also takes the viewer into the world of recording software and, using examples and screenshots, demonstrates how he converts his ideas into individual tracks and processes them.

01 Momo
02 Moonful
03 More Summer
04 Mastermind
05 Mc
06 Move On
07 More so More
08 M-Rotation