Malcolm Braff - piano
Reggie Washington - bass
Lukas König - drums
Malcolm Braff doesn’t run out of ideas. Born in Rio de Janeiro, he grew up on the Cape Verdean Isles and Senegal before settling in Switzerland. The pianist, composer and aesthetic maverick has worked on his reputation of an inspiring artist who fires up the European scene with spectacular activities, especially with spectacular art. In the early Nineties projects acquainted him with fellow artists like Bänz Oester, Mathieu Michel, Samuel Blaser and also Eric Truffaz. Trios like Braff – Oester- Rohrer or the trio Yele with Alex Blake and Yaya Outtara left the status of insider’s tip and became synonyms for over boarding vitality. On “Inside” Braff joins together for the first time with bassist Reggie Washington and drummer Lukas Koenig. The musicians knew each other from workshops in Linz, Austria where Braff taught in 2010. When he was offered to establish a dream team for the Cully Jazz Festival in Switzerland he picked Washington and Koenig - a stroke of luck. The co-lecturer from Brussels and the co-student from Vienna proved to be the perfect companions in his modern soul jazz, African tinged sound scape.
Reggie Washington is among the highest profile bassists of the modern jazz scene. Brought up in a musical family, his parents were avid jazz and soul fans. His sister Yvette an excellent violinist/voilist , his brother Kenny a famed drummer & jazz historian. The many weekend listening & learning sessions with brother Kenny and Marcus Miller paved his way into improvisational music. Aside from holding down the groove for Steve Coleman’s Five Elements, Washington has played with such notables as Roy Hargrove’s RH Factor, Branford Marsalis’ Buckshot LeFonque, Cassandra Wilson, Uri Caine, Don Byron, Meshell N’degeocello, Oliver Lake Steel Quartet and many others. He proves how much more effective the music can be when a bass player opts for serving the needs of the music. Both his time and his choice of notes are emblematic of a player who is tighter than tight with his time-honoured role and how to expand it. Since 2005, Reggie has stepped out as a leader touring with his bands through Europe, the U.K. & U.S.A. to very receptive and appreciative audiences. His music represents the cutting edge of jazz & other musical genres today.
Lukas Koenig is the youngest member of the trio. He hails from St.Pölten, Austria, began his education in Vienna’s music secondary school located in the Neustiftsgasseand later studied at the Gustav Mahler Conservatory and the Anton Bruckner University under Clement Adlassnig, Herbert Pirker and Peter Herbert. Lukas works with members of the Vienna Artist Collective “Jazzwerkstatt Wien”, plays in bands like Kompost 3 or Königleopold and shared the stage with Wolfgang Puschnig, Jamaladeen Tacuma, Clemens Salesny, Paul Urbanek and Thomas Gansch amongst others. 2010 Koenig attended a workshop in Linz where met Malcolm Braff and visited with him in Berne some months later. This resulted in the invitation to join the carte blanche offer of the Cully Festival. This gave the trio a good week’s chance to grow together through intense work. After some more concerts the time had come to go to the studio to record a compact, rousing debut album.
