Gerwin Eisenhauer's Booom
Gerwin Eisenhauer's Booom
Glasgow Art Club
Rob Adams
Jazz musicians find inspiration in all sorts of locations, situations and even denominations. German drummer Gerwin Eisenhauer may be the first, however, to realise credible jazz compositions from the micro-melodies that signal progression through various stages of video games.
Eisenhauer is clearly a connoisseur of this market, although having children with game-playing enthusiasms that have followed and indeed enlarged upon his own hasn't hindered his ongoing survey of the jazz potential of eight-bit motifs.
His pleasure in creating what has been mistaken for an obscure Thelonious Monk tune from a 1980s PacMan jingle or transforming a sliver of Super Mario's soundtrack into a calypso that Sonny Rollins might have revelled in during his Caribbean pomp is palpable and actually quite sweet.
Some of his creations worked better than others - vocalist Marcus Engelstadter's introduction of electronic effects, oddly enough, didn't especially enhance the quartet central to Eisenhauer's aims and a jazz ballad courtesy of Nintendo became a mite laboured.
But there was much strong musicianship.
Not least that came from from Eisenhauer's Scottish guests, the habitually searching and excitingly creative guitarist Graeme Stephen, and pianist Peter Johnstone, who sat in admirably at the eleventh hour.
Eisenhauer has something of our own Tom Bancroft about him, in build as well as artistic temperament and in an ability to merge musical freedom with propulsion and steer the ship with a sure sense of shape.
His understanding with bass guitarist Uli Zrenner-Wolkenstein, although not perhaps forged over sixty years as mirthfully claimed, also played a big part in giving the music a certain charm as well as, at times, a slow-building, Pat Metheny Group-style momentum
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article