Reviews:

Henning Bolte (Netherlands):

All About Jazz

"Eleven is a regenerative, joyful work of complex music. Its bracing and encouraging power could help to face our world's chaos, with its juxtaposition of misery and joy”

Clarity, angularity, consistency are the most distinguishing characteristics of the album Eleven, created by saxophonist Igor Lumpert & Innertextures. M-Base, Mahler and Mingus are keywords, too.

Erico Bettinelo (Italy)

Giornaledellamusica:

"The post-bop tensions of the Big  Apple, the obliquities of the folk melody, but also an original funk brilliance are the ingredients of a record that swarms with ideas and energy, not rarely explosive rhythmically under the oblique lines of the winds. Lovers of the most sophisticated urban-jazz, this record is for you!"

Mariusz ZawISLAK (Poland)

MULTIKULTI

"The texture of improvisation is detailed, focused on the details, pure and non-irritating, giving the disc a surprising lightness. "Eleven" is an album that I will reach often! "

Udo Andris (Germany)

JAZZ Podium

.."Igor Lumpert & Innertextures are Ideally in command of mixed and intertwined compositions and improvisational outbursts hovering between abstraction and  physique"

Icho Vidmar (Slovenia)

Sigic 

“Damn good alabum”

Jürg Solothurnmann (Switzerland)

Jazz'N'More

“Lumpert writes complex themes and colourful arrangements with surprising twists, sometimes with change-overs and echoes of Slovenia, blending seamlessly into improvisation and developing them in interplay and polyphonic progression “

Vincenco Roggero (Italy )

ALL ABOUT JAZZ

“In Eleven we find rich content, sophisticated writing, the bop catapulted into the metropolitan neuroses, funky cadences, the joyful communicativeness of the fanfares and a dry executive essentiality”

CONTEMPORARY MUSIC BLOG- USA

“Tenor saxophone melodies by Igor Lumpert are vivacious, energetic and active. Dynamic and expressive solos, furious and vibrant blow outs, astonishing riffs, spontaneous solos with wild fast and virtuosic passages – all these elements are the most important part of his improvisations”

ARTICLES

TINA LESNICAR (SLOVENIA)

DELO- 2018

Good band, says Yoko Ono

Igor Lumpert began to weave musical ties with acquaintances and classmates from New School, a school for jazz and contemporary music, when he came to New York eighteen years ago. When intertwining his vision with their influences, supported by wisdom and knowledge of jazz legends, new textures of friendship and music emerged - lnnertextures, as Lumpert says, who is on a European tour these days.

On the first album in 2003, our saxophonist wrapped up with today's renowned jazzists such as pianist Robert Glasper and drummer Johnathan Blake, then worked with bassist Chris Tordini and  drummer  Nasheet Waits, and  last year with alto saxophonist Greg Ward, bassist Chris Tordini and drummer Kenny Grohowski released the fourth album (second with the Portuguese label Clean Feed). The title Eleven carries one of the songs, according to Lumper t's words, the most complex one on the panel, which illustrates the search for balance - in music and life, which in numerology denotes number 11. There are also the letters on his behalf, giving the album even more personal touch.

We already heard the music from the Eleven album last year at the Ljubljana Jazz Festival, before the saxophonist and his colleagues were locked in the Brooklyn Bunker Studio, and handed over to the artistic direction of producer Robert Sadin, who earned the reputation of producing great albums such as Herbie Hancock, Sting and Wayne Shorter. Particular attention was paid to placing microphones while recording the disc. For five hours, the  tonal  master  arranged  twenty microphones per studio, which can be heard on the record. The sound is strong, direct, but at the same time sunny and sleek.

Cosmic connection

Lumpert described collaboration with Sadin, with whom he studied composition on New School as "cosmic connection". "He introduced energy and enthusiasm to my music, that I had not thought of before. I wrote the music for nonet, and Robert thought that we could transfer the message with the quartet with two saxophones, and because we were financially restricted, this was a welcome tip, "Lumpert said of a compromise that ultimately turned out to be true decision as critics over the album are enthusiastic.They praise it as "regenerative, cheerful, complex music - clear, robust and consistent”, which they wrote in All About Jazz. In II giornale della musica, they

praised a multitude of ideas and energy in the mix of post-pop tension of the Great Apple, folk visions and original funk, and a record recommended to lovers of sophisticate d urban jazz .

The music on the Eleven album was even compared with a vibe like that of Charles Mingus, as a branch of Mahler' s symphonies, and the depth of the American conceptual collective M-Base, which in practice came to life under the leadership of saxophonist Steve Coleman. Igor Lumpert idea of a macro-basic array of structured extemporization (M-Base ) during the study in Linz was implanted by drummer  Doug Hammond , mentor of many musicians with Coleman at the helm.

“Like talking to the gods. With the Guardians of the Sky, "a listener exclaimed after a concert in Thessaloniki, where the quartet stopped on a European tour of Hungary, Spain, Italy, Macedonia and Slovenia. With us, Lumpert is again hosting a slightly modified rhythm section, in fact the one we heard in Cerkno in May. Masa Kamaguchi stepped in for the bass and Jason Nazary drummed for the drums. They will perform at the Šiška Cinema today, and on November 2, Lumpert is preparing a duet with the pianist Matija Dedić at the Ljubljana Castle Jazz Club, who devoted his life (otherwise to his mother Gabi Novak and father Arsen Arsenic) to music, more specifically to jazz. He will be joining Lumpert in a much different program than we were used to by an inspired saxophonist. “In all my years of creation, there has been a lot of different music in my drawer than I present in Innertextures. Mostly these are ballads and blues. In the future I would like to release a record with this music, and I invited Matija Dedić to present a part of my compositions in Ljubljana. "

Innertextures

DISCOGRAPHY

(chronologically)