Tim Allhoff & Leonkoro Quartet - Morla (2022)

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Tim Allhoff & Leonkoro Quartet - Morla (2022)

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With his eighth album MORLA, ECHO award winner Tim Allhoff shows curiosity, self-confidence and a stylistic diversity that reflects his various musical influences. For many years he has been one of the most important pianists on the German scene. The magazine JAZZTHING calls him the "Piano Shooting Star of the Republic" and the SÜDDEUTSCHE congratulates him, at the latest with this release, on his "ascent into the royal class of solo pianists".

MORLA is the wise, gigantic turtle from the children's book "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende. She lives lonely in the swamps of sadness and yet knows millennia-old stories from all over the world. In order to get the wisest of advice from her, you have to expose yourself to the danger of the swamps, otherwise you won't reach her. She is a little strange, speaking of herself in the plural; she is a thinker who matures her thoughts over many years and yet never moves from the spot. She is mountain and prophet in one being. She is eternity and origin. And originality is also what Tim Allhoff's new album MORLA is about.

It is the eighth album by the pianist and composer, who has been honored with various musician and composer awards throughout his career. His earlier albums are more in the genre of jazz and have received several awards. However, Tim Allhoff is also at home in classical music, which has accompanied him since childhood. Among other things, he just recently arranged parts of the debut album of shooting star soprano Fatma Said, at whose side he can be heard both on the album and on stage.

Now, as part of MORLA, Allhoff takes the opportunity to reflect on the origins and trajectory of his artistic work as a pianist and composer; the resulting collection of compositions evokes a variety of contrasting moods, reminiscent of flipping through a photo album - an album of his work to date and a melting pot of the musical genres Allhoff incorporates. "I grew up listening to a lot of classical music and later graduated from the conservatory in Munich as a jazz pianist. However, I have always been interested in very different styles of music - Bach's English Suites could appear in my playlist, followed by Radiohead, the Beatles and Miles Davis" explains Tim Allhoff with a smile.

Consequently, the album features works by other composers in addition to his own compositions. The album opener "Death with Dignity" is a song by Sufjan Stevens, a U.S. songwriter whom Tim Allhoff holds in high esteem. He arranged the piece for the Berlin-based Leonkoro Quartet. The multi-award-winning string quartet also plays a weighty role in Allhoff's compositions "Day of Leaving" and "Lea's Song." In his composition "For Iori", on the other hand, a yearning violin is suddenly heard, played by Niklas Liepe on his Guarneri. Tim Allhoff is very happy about the participation of these longtime friends: "I've known Niklas for quite a while and love his sound, it was great that he could be a guest. The same goes for the Leonkoro Quartet, whose sound excited me from the first moment."

In "Schumann Exploration" Tim uses a movement from the "Album für die Jugend" as a starting point for improvisations. These spontaneously created melodies blend smoothly with those Robert Schumann wrote down more than 100 years ago. For Tim Allhoff, this is a testament to the timelessness of this music. Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy's "Schäfers Klagelied" (op.67/5), Johann Sebastian Bach's Organ Sonata IV and the jazz ballad "In the wee small hours of the morning", made famous above all by Frank Sinatra, are further works that have influenced Tim Allhoff's work and are now united on MORLA.

And of course, the titular piece itself can be found on the album, which is dedicated to someone very close to the pianist. When asked in which musical genre Allhoff himself sees his new work, the pianist does not know a clear answer. "I hope that my music touches and awakens emotions. Because at the end of the day, that's the most important thing music is about" he adds.