The Chameleon’s Universe
Just by walking you’ll find new ways. Take the unknown path and confront the contrasts and contradictions that may arise: Composition vs improvisation; Time vs frequency; Heritage vs the future. We explore those special interactions, trying to push the boundaries of composed music and modern jazz. What’s tradition? What’s modern? Who knows. We expand these fields until they reach creative contact.
Sometimes our pieces resemble a dangerous laboratory, where written music and spontaneous reactions of the musicians lead to highly explosive musical situations. Sometimes those pieces develop like a piano performance of Thelonious Monk, a risky tightrope walk: All of a sudden, seemingly familiar and radical ideas are being simultaneously confronted.
In the chameleon’s universe, it all starts with the blues and ends with the blues. Music keeps changing colours. The new becomes the familiar and then becomes the new… Just by walking you’ll find new ways. After all, at its core our music adheres with what you simply might call “jazz”. (Marcus Ratka)
Line-Up
reeds:Herwig Gradischnig
trumpet: Daniel Nösig
trombone: Robert Bachner
harp: Bertl Mayer
piano: Oliver Kent
bass: Matthias Pichler (Album)
bass: Hans Strasser (Stage)
drums: Mario Gonzi
music: Marcus Ratka
THE TRACKS
01 | The Blues [10:36]
music & arrangement: Marcus Ratka • The playground where it all started and to which it all leads back.
02 | Calls and Hollers [08:25] music & arrangement: Marcus Ratka • In the olden days of men working hard in the fields, the field hollers formed a means of long distance communication; spontaneous reactions of call and response.
03 | Buddy Boy [07:10]
music & arrangement: Marcus Ratka
A nice guy at first sight, but always in for a surprise. Be aware of the knife in his pocket!
04 | Time Vs. Frequency III [04:39]
music & arrangement: Marcus Ratka
Chameleon. A fabulous tune by Herbie Hancock. Funk was introduced to Jazz and we keep on playing new variations on that topic.
05 | The Dangerous Laboratory [05:06]
music & arrangement: Marcus Ratka
Don’t Enter! Beware of explosive chemical and musical reactions.
06 | Goodnight Old Porkhead [06:09]
music & arrangement: Marcus Ratka
Bows to the Bass… and the Pithecanthropus Erectus of Composition in modern Jazz!
07 | Homage to Thelonious Monk [08:31]
music & arrangement: Marcus Ratka
Our tribute to the great composer who introduced us to the charming beauty of dissonance and rhythmic displacement.
08 | I Hear Buddy Boldon Play [08:11]
music & arrangement: Marcus Ratka
A tribute to one of the great trumpet players of the early days… Hear the unheard!
09 | Basin Street Blues [05:28]
music: Spencer Williams, arrangement: Marcus Ratka
Find the way back to where it all began: “Won’t you come and go with me
Down that Mississippi? We’ll take a boat to the land of dreams. Come along with me on down to New Orleans!”
Just by walking you’ll find new ways!
Tournee & Konzerte 2016
Oktober 2016 bis Januar 2017: Artists in Residence am JAM MUSIC LAB, Conservatory for Jazz and Popular Music. Laufende Workshoptätigkeit, Master Classes und 1 Konzerte monatlich im Kulturverein Gasometer unter Einbindung hochbegabter Studierender der Instrumental- und Kompositionsklassen des Instituts begleiten diese Periode.
Im Jahre 2005 erschien die erste CD von Chameleon Changes (veröffentlich bei Preiser Records. Oder erhältlich auf Amazon.de).
Die aktuelle CD, erhältlich bei Preiser Records
