Music is a continual learning process. This is a fact that a producer with a long music experience such as CHRISTIAN PROMMER would certainly agree on. He started his apprenticeship as a member of FAUNA FLASH with his partner and friend ROLAND APPEL. He made himself a name with 3 full-length albums, a multitude of 12“s, remixes and appearances on very famous labels such as Compost Records, G Stone Recordings and !K7. He kept on discovering and experimenting with new sounds with the band TRÜBY TRIO (w/ RAINER TRÜBY and ROLAND APPEL), whose album Elevator Music has been a great success that crossed over the German Broken Beats and dance music scene and also with the band VOOM:VOOM that he formed with recording pal PETER KRUDER. His project CHRISTIAN PROMMER’s DrumLesson Vol.1 (SK162CD/" title="view release information">SK162CD/jazz club) that he releases on JAZZANOVA’s Sonar Kollektiv is the next step in his personal music learning process and also a successful attempt at doing something cutting-edge that will please both fans of electronic music and fans of jazz. This concept came out of his admiration for the classic track Strings Of Life from Detroit legend DERRICK MAY, that he rediscovered while listening to music with PETER KRUDER in 2004, and from the idea of composing a pure dancefloor oriented Jazz track that he could play aloud in the clubs. As CHRISTIAN explains it, Strings of Life was the perfect test drive composition, because it binds 2 worlds that he really loves: Jazz and Detroit techno. He called up a few friends notably the fantastic ROBERTO DI GIOIA, who helped him to arrange the piece and recorded piano and bass on it, as well as his two personal drumheroes ERNST STRÖER and WOLFGANG HAFFNER, and they started working altogether. This first recording session was an outstanding success. DERRICK MAY himself called the composition a masterpiece. And from this successful experience to recording the full project there was just one next step that CHRISTIAN PROMMER took with ease, that is the preparation of the record.

As CHRISTIAN says: „Luck is when preparation meets opportunity“. It took him 2 months of hard-work to prepare the album. He arranged the tunes, composed the new parts and found the right tempos and grooves with his partner ROBERTO DI GIOIA. From Mr. FINGER’s Can you feel it to ÂME’s Rej over to Beau Mot Plage from ISOLEE without forgetting JOSH WINK’s Higher State Of Consciousness and DERRICK MAY’s Strings Of Life, all the tracks chosen are CHRISTIAN’s personal favourites. He used to play them in his DJ sets, excepted KRAFTWERK’s Trans Europa Express, which was PETER KRUDER’s wonderful idea. For CHRISTIAN it is a sure thing that all those artists have a jazzy approach in their way of composing music. The grooves of those tracks and their build-ups have an intense and magic vibe that is sometimes hard to be found in contemporary jazz music. Finding this vibe in the studio again, grasping it and recording it was what his task was all about. With such a good preparation magic had to appear when they would record the tracks in studio. He gathered WOLFGANG HAFFNER, ERNST STRÖER, ROBERTO DI GIOIA and engineer FLORIAN OESTEREICHER in Munich. PETER KRUDER had to be part of the adventure too, as he would mix the record in his studio in Vienna later on. And magic happened... 14 tracks – covers and tracks called Drumlesson I-V made of improvisations and little grooves that bridge the other tracks altogether and a few personal compositions – were recorded in ten hours. Everybody played exactly the way it needed to be done and added some extra depth and colour to it. After this great recording session CHRISTIAN and PETER drove to Vienna and PETER KRUDER used all his talent to mix the tunes and to make a great record out of it. He used his vintage analogue gear to get the energy and the warmth that CHRISTIAN was looking for, notably very old German valve equalisers that used to be used in cinemas in the 50s and 60s as well as compressors from the legendary Abbey Road Studio in UK.

CHRISTIAN PROMMER really found the right moment to come up with this project. Strings Of Life released in May 2007 has been an outstanding success and October 2007 is the perfect time for Sonar Kollektiv to release the album CHRISTIAN PROMMER’s Drumlesson Vol.1(SK162 CD/jazz club). This masterpiece is the missing link between Jazz and electronic music – 2 worlds so far but so close from each other – and it will deeply enrich our understanding of music and make us dance either in clubs or at home. Just like the 12“ released April this year Strings Of Life / Space Jam 2000.17 (SK137/jazz club) this is a split vinyl again, featuring a Jazz interpretation taken from the album on one side and an Electronic tune on the flip, The Jazz track "Beau Mot Plage" is a version that plays with the elements of the ISOLÉE original and the FREEFORM FIVE remix.

A massive latin Jazz monster track, pure drum energy giving drummer WOLFGANG HAFFNER and percussionist ERNST STRÖER the spotlight they deserve. As the original, this made for the dancefloor, completely written and produced by CHRISTIAN PROMMER on his own. The track Rex Drum has an interesting history. Christian got the complete drum set from CURT CRESS who did play the drums for BONEY M, SNOWBALL, PASSPORT, and DONNA SUMMER, just to name a few, on this set. A piece of drum history.
Rex Drums was created spontaneously when CHRISTIAN PROMMER played on this set for the first time ever.. This mid-tempo Disco track is getting massive supports by DJ’s like ALEX BARCK/JAZZANOVA, MICHAEL REINBOTH/Compost Records and DJ KAOS to name a few.