# Ecstatic saxophone grooves confuse them … Video, Photo

- Link: https://jazzblues.eu/2021/04/30/ecstatic-saxophone-grooves-confuse-them-video-photo/
- Published: 2021-04-30T10:45:56+01:00
- Author: https://JazzBlues.EU

**Jazz doesn’t have to sound elitist, snobbish or deadly serious. Many of the greats
of this popular music shifted aesthetic boundaries and mucked up. Stephanie Lottermoser
from the south of Bavaria moved to Hamburg many years ago and has already recorded
several albums with funk and soul jazz.**

You name your fifth after the Hanseatic city. She then works out the stylistic closeness
to soul and funk with three vocal tracks that fit even more into the other segments.
Nevertheless, the presence of their saxophone solos predominates on this record 
and in some places also one or the other tingling keyboard part, so that “Hamburg”
is also aimed at experienced jazz ears.

But if you are really convinced of certain style principles to the core, the LP 
could also be perceived as a provocation. Because the tracks mostly have very clear,
song-like structures, even when Stephanie is not singing. The character of improvised
music shines through less often, but the pieces show dramaturgy and progression.
You can find a successful compromise between pop format and freer play.

Part of the ‘jazz police’, however, that is, conservative, categorized circles within
the large jazz universe with its umpteen sub-genres, was initially a horror of Stephanie’s
openness and mix of styles. She takes stock: “Of course, during your studies and
while you are taking your first steps on the open concert market, you want not only
the audience, but also recognition from fellow students, and later from colleagues.
There are very different mentalities at home in jazz . There are people for whom
nothing came after bebop that they would even call jazz. Some only play straight-
ahead, some only avant-garde music and don’t really accept anything else. ”

“I find that difficult. For me, it’s about whether something is played well and 
authentically. If in doubt, it can also be music that is not my favorite music now.
Nevertheless, I can acknowledge that people have beautiful music and: theirs Make
music, but there are very, very strong purists in the jazz scene who have a clear
idea of ​​what is acceptable, what is deep enough and what is not, because I went
in such a soul-groove-funk-jazz direction I didn’t like it all. For a couple of 
years I got a lot of things that weren’t really nice. Now I don’t care. I think 
you can only be successful at all with your own music, if you are honest with yourself
be.”

The opener “Cory”, which sparkles full of euphoria, already embeds the saxophone
as a supporting instrument in a funk-rocky, fast drum rhythm bed. An optimistic 
start. “Letter To The Inner Child” underlines with funky bass runs, cutting jazz
rock riffs on the keyboard and a dominant electric guitar that Stephanie celebrates
the fusion scene of the 70s in the style of Weather Report and the Crusaders and
gives room for creative thinking. The album “Hamburg” clears your head quickly and
allows a few kicks towards joie de vivre and a sunny disposition even after tough
days of zooming and home office in April frost with the usual mask disputes in the
supermarket queue. So the right record at the right time.

The piano-supported vocal ballad “Dreaming My Dreams With You” dares a move into
the currently rather empty field of Corinne Bailey Rae, Randy Crawford and Sade 
on the record market: beautiful, calm, sliding soul with a sympathetically unexcited
but expressive voice. Stephanie arranges the vocal pieces, in which she both sings
and blows the saxophone, quite elegantly. At the same time, she stays at eye level
with people who otherwise just listen to pop and avoids eccentric, tangled curls.

In “Dreaming My Dreams With You” as well as in “Within”, Stephanie’s keyboard colleague
Till imitates some sequences from the synthesizer and overdubbeds them so that they
sound like a clavinet – a refreshing timbre, rarely used, known from the music of
Marvin Gayes or Stevie Wonders. “Within” is so ecstatic that it comes across as 
very relaxed at the same time. “Gate A5 Geneve” elicits some clattering high notes
from the keyboard instruments, which offer Stephanie’s tenor saxophone good contrasts.

![Stephanie Lottermoser Hamburg - Knut Schötteldreier](https://i0.wp.com/schoettdesign.
de/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Lottermoser-Hamburg-LP.jpg?w=640&ssl=1)

The third piece sung, “What Kind Of Lovesong”, gives hi-hats as well as saxophone
and guitar plenty of room to develop. Stephanie intones casually and leaves any 
superfluous pathos aside, because singing is limited to a part-time job in the Gesamtkunstwerk,
and the saxophone is the real star.

So you feel stylistically reminded of some brilliant live recordings by Prince and
his Dutch colleague Candy Dulfer. Stephanie knows this leap of thought: “It’s sometimes
too obvious: I’ll probably be compared to her forever because we’re both blonde 
and play the saxophone. That’s okay because I think she’s great. Candy Dulfer wasn’t
the first saxophonist to be. that I ran into. I only discovered it later, but I 
also think it’s great. ” Despite the many female ex-fellow students, the 37-year-
old Stephanie Lottermoser notices that there are still not many women who have made
careers on this instrument – even if that seems to be changing a bit right now. 
Thus the album also marks a statement in the direction of the visibility of women
beyond the singing role.

Even if “Zwischenraum” or “Morgen (Hamburg)” sound a bit restrained and meander,
so that you feel close to the lounge, most of the performances quickly pull you 
along. “Hype” increases, according to a hype, from a very quiet, leisurely introduction
to a striking, present middle section with a loud wind solo – and then pauses briefly
to lead to an orchestral, menacingly loud second half.

“Karma” and “Prayer” tend to promote concentration and arouse the desire to deal
more with instrumentals and to give such sounds a chance. Stephanie Lottermoser 
is doing the industry a good service, packaging everything very accessible with 
a friendly eye-catcher cover artwork and by the way shows: Funkyness lives and can
give us happy impulses in these times.

![Stephanie Lottermoser - Hamburg [CD] – Horizons Music](https://i0.wp.com/cdn.shopify.
com/s/files/1/0130/8714/6043/products/StephanieLottermoser-Hamburg.jpg?resize=640%
2C640&ssl=1)

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