news

Live solo CD - 'Land of Shadows' on Jazzwerkstatt Label

The 'Land of Shadows' CD launch concert was a great evening - at the 'Institute Francais' in Berlin. Lots of CDs sold!!!

Here's a photos of the evening.

'...Verdrängt das Klavier das Saxophon und die Trompete als Leitinstrumente im Jazz? Neue Alben von so erstklassigen Künstlern wie Julie Sassoon oder dem Thomas Rückert Trio stehen für die Vielfalt des Piano-Jazz..." Hans Hielscher - Der Spiegel

"The sounds rise up from silence, from a far away place, from a different time, until they land in the present where they begin to glow. Watching Julie Sassoon play, one has the impression that the piano will consume her completely. From hidden depths she unearths the sounds, one by one, she threads them into chains, bundles them up into sound clusters, and lets them slide gently back into silence..."

Bert Noglik - Berlin Jazz Festival Director

"Sassoon’s approach to solo piano – rather like Keith Jarrett’s in Cologne nearly 40 years ago – is to spin mesmerising improvisations from repeated – often relatively simple, even minimalist – note clusters or motifs... readily exploring diversions as they reveal themselves to her along the way...

...thunderous bass notes, ringing churchbell-like passages, the subtlest of ethereal sounds highlighted by her light singing, are all incorporated, entirely naturally, in an improvisational method ...."

"... Immersion in her unique soundworld is an affecting experience..."

Chris Parker - London Jazz News

"...Julie Sassoon's new album - "Land of Shadows" is a release which - in my opinion - more than rivals another solo piano album recorded nearly 40 years ago in Germany ... Keith Jarrett Cologne Concert..."

Mike Gerber - UK Jazz Radio

"Dieses Piano-Soloalbum ist von flirrender Schönheit..."

"...a solo piano album of shimmerimng beauty..."

Ulli Steinmetzger - Leipziger Volkszeitung

'Land of Shadows' is a wonderfully rich and beautiful record. Its also a very brave one that succeeds in taking its message beyond the personal into areas both more spiritual and profound...'

Duncan Heining - All About Jazz

'... soundboard-shaking power expressed along with meditative romanticism...'

Ken Waxman - Jazzword

'Her work has always had its own sense of the profound, a feeling of wonder p erhaps. But now with Land of Shadows, it has the capacity to speak beyond the personal to a wider world of concern'

'Land of Shadows' is a striking work. A mix of simple and complex, gentle and strident, dark and light, it's powerful and affecting...

...Sassoon's music has a universality that invites everyone to enter and share in experiencing her often quite remakable compositions...'

Bruce Lindsay - All About Jazz

"...an unclassifiable venture... Julie Sassoon consistently makes the piano, her voice and her deepest emotions sound awesomely and naturally inseparable."

THE GUARDIAN - John Fordham ****

"... Jarrett is an artist with whom Sassoon shares a language and a tradition. Indeed, Land of Shadows might be thought of as

the Cologne Concert after Jarretts The Koeln Concert. It deserves (and given a chance, will receive) the same kind of recognition and adulation..."

"...the music doesnt exist outside the world... rather , it contains the world inside it..."

"...Sassoons music is always marked by intense concentration, complete surrender to the moment and manages the trick of suspending time for her listeners..."

Mike Butler - Dyverse Musi c

voted favourite jazz CD (non-vocal) of 2013

"... piano music that is a cut beyond, in the same class as Jarrett or Pieranunzi or other first class players..."

At the London Jazz Festival Gig - Naiel Ibarolla