Matti Klein: Soul Trio

They say we all live in our own bubble. Due to the power of social media and algorithms, we are trapped in a world where we only want to hear the same thing. But is that really true?

Matti Klein and his Soul Trio prove with their third album Bouncin’ In Bubbleverse: It can be incredibly fun to juggle with the various bubbles from the realms of jazz, funk, hip-hop, or space rock, to explore their boundaries, and to joyfully bring them to a colorful burst. This way, one can clear the view for something new.

The unorthodox is anyway a specialty of the trio. The trio has a unique sound that arises from the warm tones of Klein's Wurlitzer E-Piano, the deep foundation of a rare 1973 Rhodes bass, and the effect-rich, expressive playing of saxophonist and bass clarinetist Lars Dieterich. Combined with the rhythmically highly flexible drums of André Seidel, it becomes “a new, bubbling variant of the popular organ trio format,” as the British magazine Jazzwise once noted.

“As a musician, you are always on the move in all kinds of bubbles,” explains bandleader Klein the album title, “sometimes you're at a big festival, then again in a small jazz club. And we keep bouncing around, always diving into a new universe.” The man knows what he’s talking about. After all, the vintage keyboard master, born in 1984 in Berlin, is somewhat of Germany's hardest traveling man in the name of groove.

As part of the successful jazz funk formation Mo' Blow and as the musical director of Brazilian soul pop legend Ed Motta, Klein has already stood on the stages of the most important jazz clubs in New York, Tokyo, London, and Paris. And his Soul Trio, founded in 2017 together with Dieterich and Mo' Blow colleague Seidel, can now look back on over 300 concerts in all parts of the world – with performances and tours in South Africa, Malaysia, Bahrain, Finland, and the United Kingdom, among others.

This long-standing cohesion is particularly reflected in Bouncin’ In Bubbleverse. All pieces from the pen of the bandleader contain a kind of encore that picks up elements from the just completed song but interprets them much more freely and sometimes completely differently. Klein has named these reflections “Echos,” which add another layer of meaning to the album's filter bubble theme: When you loosen up and change your perspective, you suddenly see the same thing with completely different eyes.

“This developed in our concerts,” Klein recounts, “the song is actually over, but one just keeps going and pulls the others into a jam. I like this spontaneity. Because you break through what you usually do and look at it from a different angle. That's what I also wanted for the album.” This means: The echoes, developed together in the spirit of a collective solo, continue to tell the stories formulated in the reference piece on Bouncin’ In Bubbleverse or transfer them into other dimensions.

For example, the softly dreamy summer romance ballad “A Summer Fairytale” receives a fiery Latin happy ending afterwards. The piece “New Frontiers,” which conveys a mix of hip-hop aesthetics, yacht-pop sunshine, and metrically inverted retro-soul jazz, is transformed into a psychedelic polyrhythmic anthem. The rocking, driving “Left Lane Larry,” inspired by the left-hand traffic on the British island, returns as a soulful blues. “Capetown After Dark,” in turn, processes the trio's formative tour experiences with its bittersweet energy and attains a deeper, spiritual note in its echo afterthought.

In any case, the first album created in Klein's own studio in Prenzlauer Berg shows how much the trio has grown together and matured over the past few years. Numbers like the nearly chanson-like “End of Sight,” which Klein composed on the Azorean island of Graciosa, speak of an incredible inner calm and the knowledge that you can rely on the others.

The trio has also perfected one of its unmistakable trademarks – the use of wild irregular time signatures. None of the compositions on Bouncin’ In Bubbleverse is in the conventional 4/4 time. The band does not take it amiss. On the contrary: People dance to it. “Odd Times to Party,” as it is playfully mentioned in the opening piece of the album. “That’s what the album conveys,” explains Matti Klein, “we may live in challenging and strange times – but we make the best of it!”

Doors open at 7:00 p.m. Show starts at 8:00 p.m.
Tickets are available for €37.30 at the tourist information centers in Konz and Saarburg.