“Most musicians I know are also good cooks”, says Jazzanova´s Alex Barck and so sums up a basic truth about Homecooking: jazz and cooking aren’t so different. In both it is important that that right selection of ingredients are knowingly added according to taste so that the result is more than the sum of its parts. And of course improvisation also plays an enormously important role in the kitchen.
And so the idea for this unusual came to fruition: an elaborately bound cook book, a collection of recipes from musical gourmets as well as professional chefs from the Jazzanova scene. It’s a culinary “you are here” with platters that matter for meal times as well as record players.
For Homecooking is not just a cook book but also contains a compilation CD with selected material from the Sonar Kollektiv catalogue. It’s a collection for which the immediate focus is for once not on clubs or the trendsetting world of breaks, but rather on the home cooker: “This is music for cooking and eating to”, Alex Barck.
Jazzanova have picked out a string of downbeat pearls which make the perfect backdrop for a sensory stimulating evening – not just something to fill the pauses between conversations. After all, soul food on the plate needs soul food for the ears – and there’s plenty of that here. Perhaps the highlight of the compilation is the wonderful Held Him First by Deyampert.
The jazz fraction is represented by Meitz with the track Mandelbrot, Macedonia from Third Eye as well as Nomad from Micatone (here in Radio Citizen Remix). Also, Clara Hill, Georg Levin and Benny Sings are there with their typically impressive high level of song writing.
Besides classics from the label catalogue there are also exclusive titles which have never before been release: the already mentioned Macedonia is one exclusive track, as is Night In Brazil from Leon Ware. The Fake Anti Waltz from The Slapped Eyeballers was already on a Sonar Kollektiv 12″ (SK102) but this is the first time the track is available on CD.
So along with well known tunes there are also new ones to discover.
Back from the turntable to the kitchen: the Roskow-Burger für arme Musiker (trans. Roskow burger for poor musicians) comes from Jazzanova member ROSKOW KRETSCHMANN who on the side has a club night in Berlin called “Plattenküche” (trans. Record Kitchen). DOBIE BLAZE, the keyboard player for FAT FREDDYS DROP, has a prime time cookery show on New Zealand TV and contributes the dish Cockles Galicia. The Cockles Galicia episode of the show is on the CD as a bonus clip. Lammcarreé mit Tabouleh comes from wine expert and DJ, RAINER TRÜBY. STEFAN LEISERING from JAZZANOVA provided his mothers Souljanka recipe. MRS. WIEDEMANN, mother of FRANK WIEDEMANN (ÂME), used to cook for the international musical elite at the Karlsruher jazz festival. As legend has it, her Badischer Kalbstafelspitz was JOE ZAWINUL’s favourite meal…
And even current and former Sonar Kollektiv interns present affordable dishes for singles and newcomers.
So Homecooking is not just a Sonar Kollektiv compilation dressed up as a cook book – it’s as much a cookbook in its own right, but one which comes with the perfect background music. If in the coming Christmas time a tasty aroma blows through your record store of choice then there one good reason for it: with Homecooking JAZZANOVA have realised a project as obvious as it is unusual, which impressively unites two things that belong so closely together anyway. Maybe now you can find the right present for all you loved ones in records stores.
Hannes Bieger
Press Quotes:
“Many tastes are catered for, as the style ranges from toothsome new soul to stiff instrumental jazz workouts.”
The Times –
“Jazzanova have cooked up a tasty compilation of soulful tunes fit for the kitchen.”
IDJ –
“Homecooking is yet another slice of smooth soul, hip hop, Jazz, r n b and electronica fused together with care – ‘just like mama used to make’ hence the title and superb selection of art…”
Blues & Soul –
