Uassyn / Uassyn - Zacharya [CD]

Anything but ordinary - that could be the motto of the young Swiss trio Uassyn. Although the band has a line-up of saxophone, bass and drums, which has a long tradition in jazz history, it sounds anything but traditional. This is due to the unusual patterns that drummer Vincent Glanzmann drums, the steady bass Silvan Jeger plucks and the unique sound Tapiwa Svosve gets out of his alto saxophone. "The combination of instruments is not that important for us," Glanzmann said. "We are more defined by our personalities. It's about the sounds that are generated - they have something warm and round." He hits the nail on his head with this, because although Uassyn clearly belongs to the rather avant-garde side of jazz, they sound anything but abstractor even cerebral. And they have been working on their common sound for a long time; the trio has been together for five years. "We know each other from the Zurich jazz scene," Glanzmann said. "I played first with Silvan. We had a lot of ideas and waited for the right third person. Then Tapiwa came. "They refer to their music as skater jazz, which they tried to whip into shape during the first two years in a rehearsal room. "We try to achieve a result with this jazz tonality through other approaches," Glanzmann explained. "The image of a skater seemed quite fitting to us. If you take a board and go out, make turns and do tricks, it's a way to experience yourself. This is how we try to play our instruments."