In Concert (Live) (Bonus Digital Booklet Version) Nils Wülker & Arne Jansen

• 1YaYaYa (Live)05:37
• 2The Great He-Goat (Live)06:05
• 3Beyond the Bavarian Sky (Live)04:39
• 4Deep Dive (Live)07:15
• 5Nika's Dream (Live)04:56
• 6Wanderlust (Live)07:40
• 7Intro (Live)02:11
• 8Hurt (Live)05:00
• 9Interlude (Live)01:58
• 10Let's Go Out Tonight (Live)05:53
• 11He Who Counts the Stars (Live)05:37
• 12Highline (Live)06:30
• 13Rays of Winter Sun (Live)05:22
• Total Runtime01:08:43

Info for In Concert (Live) (Bonus Digital Booklet Version)

More expansion than sequel: After almost five years of working together as a duo, their celebrated program „Closer“ successfully brought Nils Wülker and Arne Jansen to the top of the charts and into some of the most beautiful concert halls at the beginning of 2023. With this new album, the two are logically igniting the next stage of their development. „In Concert“ is much more than just another live album – in terms of the precision of the moment and the breadth of its aural spaces. In thirteen exciting and all the while relaxed concert moments, this, Nils Wülker’s fourteenth, album turns the instrumental, expertly and electronically supported reduction to the interplay of trumpet and guitar into an all new, organically grown work of art.

„Compared to our studio album, there is a lot more interaction here,“ says Nils Wülker, who also mixed „In Concert“ in his own studio. „We are enjoying how we can explore our technical possibilities ever more, while being absolutely and completely free to do so by now – with each other and with the technology, that has become as second nature to us as playing our instruments.“ The opener „YaYaYa“, a congenial version of the ballad by Australian singer/songwriter RY X, already creates the exceptional, intimate atmosphere that runs through the entire sixty-nine minutes of the album. It speaks for the two musicians, for the music itself, but also for their audience that you can rather feel than hear the live atmosphere at the beginning. The listeners are euphoric, yet calm, almost reverent and concentrated, whether standing-room-only in the Fabrik in Hamburg or in the plush seats of Munich’s Prinzregententheater. The applause is often delayed until well into the final notes – only to erupt with even greater enthusiasm at just the right time.

Even during and around the live performances of “Closer”, which landed at #6 in the annual charts, #15 in the album charts and #1 in the jazz charts, audiences often talked of how refreshingly varied the duo’s program was. “In Concert” follows the dramaturgy of the live shows and so the voluptuous melodies of the opening songs are soon followed by the energetic “Deep Dive”, a lesson in the organic interweaving of looped rhythms and the joint and mutual build-up of the two musicians’ energies. The arcs of tension, developed and expanded in the process, are then constantly being reinforced and recreated – seemingly more effectively each time. Take, for example, the interlude from Trent Reznor’s “Hurt” into “Let’s Go Out Tonight” by The Blue Nile, which is freely improvised in the most emotional and melodic way. Here, too, the strengths of Wülker, the „great melodist“ (Die Zeit), are in evidence: the development of the motif and the melodic structure create wide open spaces in the solos and even more room for interaction.

The special quality in the interplay between Nils Wülker and Arne Jansen, which has matured over eight albums and even more years, is also evident in „Closer“ versions of three songs that were previously only available in larger instrumentation. „Wanderlust“, for example, which originally appeared on the studio album „On“ in 2017. The live version opens up completely new possibilities for the duo, culminating in a soulful question-and-answer of trumpet and guitar. „Highline“ stems from the 2020 band album „Go“. Originally a trumpet duo with Wülker’s American colleague Theo Croker, the song here turns into a funky showcase for the trumpeter and the guitarist, in which both can not only show what they can do, but above all how elegantly and closely they are able to weave their musical ideas together. To round things off, they play the floatingly glittering ballad “Rays Of Winter Sun,” which so far had only been released digitally as part of an EP late last year. A powerful, self-contained finale to this live album and yet another impressive statement of the combined development of this top-class duo.

Nils Wülker, trumpet & flugelhorn
Arne Jansen, electric & acoustic guitars

Recorded live in concert by Ingo Schmidt during the „Closer“ Tour in November 2023 and March 2024
Mixed by Nils Wülker at Ear Treat Studio, Munich, 2024
Mastered by Christoph Stickel, Vienna, 2024
Produced by Nils Wülker

Nils Wülker
erhielt ab dem siebten Lebensjahr Klavierunterricht, ab dem zehnten Lebensjahr Trompetenunterricht mit klassischer Ausrichtung. 1994 besuchte Nils Wülker für ein Jahr als ASSIST-Stipendiat eine Privatschule in den USA. Dort entdeckt er den Jazz und wurde vom Acid-Jazz und Miles Davis geprägt. Zurück in Deutschland spielte Wülker bald im Landesjugendjazzorchester NRW, mit dem er 1996 und 1998 an zwei Tourneen nach China teilnahm. 1998 studierte er nach dem Abitur an der Hochschule für Musik "Hanns Eisler" Berlin, die er 2002 erfolgreich absolvierte. 2005 gründete Nils Wülker sein eigenes Plattenlabel (Ear Treat).

Während des Studiums spielte er im Bundesjazzorchester, vertretungsweise in der RIAS Big Band, ab 2001 im Ensemble seines Hochschuldozenten Nicolai Thärichen ("Thärichens Tentett"), aber auch in der Judy Niemack Group und im Berlin Jazz Orchestra von Jiggs Whigham. Bereits vor dem Ende des Studiums ging er mit seiner eigenen Gruppe ins Studio, um Aufnahmen zu produzieren. Die daraus resultierende CD "High Spirits" ging als die erste Veröffentlichung eines deutschen Jazzmusikers bei Sony Music in die Firmengeschichte ein; als zweites Album erschien "Space Night Vol. 10" bei Sony. Wülker nahm die Veröffentlichung weiterer Platten seiner Band auf seinem eigenen Label vor. In seinem Quintett spielt er mit Jan von Klewitz am Saxophon, Lars Duppler am Piano, Dietmar Fuhr am Bass und Jens Dohle am Schlagzeug. 2010 wurde die Band um den Gitarristen Arne Jansen und Edward Maclean am E-Bass erweitert.

Aufmerksamkeit erregte er auch durch seine auf CD veröffentlichten Kompositionen für das Nachtprogramm "Space Night" des Bayrischen Rundfunks. In seinen Kompositionen vereint er die rhythmischen und harmonischen Finessen des Jazz mit dem melodiösen und groovebetonten Spiel von Funk, Rock und Pop.

Neben der Tätigkeit mit der eigenen Band spielte er auch mit Lee Ritenour, Dave Grusin, Don Grusin, Wolfgang Schmid und William Kennedy als "Hang All Stars" und mit Omara Portuondo, Dominic Miller, Joe Locke, Silje Nergaard, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Ute Lemper und Samy Deluxe, für dessen Album "Dis wo ich herkomm" er 2009 auch den Track "Sprech wie ich sprech" produzierte.

Booklet for In Concert (Live) (Bonus Digital Booklet Version)