Eigengrau Vincent Meissner Trio

• 1 Supernumb 04:04
• 2 Gemeinsam Erkunden 03:34
• 3 Nothing Compares 2 U 05:59
• 4 Manja 05:12
• 5 Be Yellow 03:47
• 6 Oknok 03:55
• 7 Palma Amore 05:49
• 8 Anthem 03:36
• 9 Separator 05:07
• Total Runtime 41:03

Info for Eigengrau

“The more new discoveries you make, the more you go back to the beginning,” observes pianist Vincent Meissner. The music on his third album, ‘Eigengrau’, is characterized by an inward gaze, by his reflections on experiences and encounters that have been meaningful to him. Together with his working trio, Josef Zeimetz on bass and Henri Reichmann on drums, Vincent Meissner has developed his own language, drawing inspiration from artists such as The Bad Plus, Esbjörn Svensson, Vijay Iyer - and his mentor, Michael Wollny.

“The word ‘Eigengrau’ describes a state of darkness behind closed eyes,” Meissner explains. “But once you rub your eyes, you see patterns. Everyone sees something different: structures, objects, perhaps nothing at all... and that’s what our music is like - creating a distinct image for every listener.”

On stage, the trio is in constant motion, often exploding with pure energy. In the studio, Vincent Meissner, his fellow musicians, and producer Andreas Brandis have sought a paring down of melody, texture and mood. On the album, the three are in close focus, with every note as an exploration, each of the tracks an invitation to finely honed and playful yet profound interchange.

At its heart, then, and despite the depth and complexity, Eigengrau is an album of songs. Its nine highly focused tracks are always emotionally involved rather than detached, and each in a subtly different way. Eigengrau flickers and shimmers with intense and carefully gradated pastel shades; their appeal is never less than totally hypnotic.

Vincent Meissner Trio

Vincent Meissner
Born in 2000, pianist Vincent Meissner is considered one of the most promising up-and-coming talents on the German jazz scene. Growing up in a small village in central Saxony, he found his instrument at an early age and discovered jazz as his passion, which was to become his life's goal. At sixteen, he went to Dresden to attend the Landesgymnasium für Musik. A fire was stoked with ever new discoveries: Oscar Peterson, Dave Brubeck and Bud Powell were followed by Paul Bley, Monk, Craig Taborn, Vijay Iyer and the Germans Pablo Held, Achim Kaufmann, Joachim Kühn and Michael Wollny. The path was the goal. Seeker and discoverer Vincent Meissner has remained to this day, also immersing himself in contemporary piano music. Since 2019, he has now been studying in Leipzig (Hochschule für Musik und Theater) with Michael Wollny, where he currently also lives and works. In his still young career, he has already received numerous awards: in 2018, in addition to a 1st prize at "Jugend Jazzt Solo", he received 1st place at the "Bechstein Piano Competition" in Berlin. With his trio he was awarded the "Concert Prize of Jazzopen Stuttgart" and the "Promotional Prize of the German Jazz Union". At the beginning of 2020, his trio also received the "Mitteldeutsche Jazzpreis", which was awarded for the first time, and he also won first place at the "International Jazzhaus Piano Competition" in Freiburg in September of this year. The ACT release "Bewegtes Feld" (Moving Field) in June 2021 is his album debut with his trio.

Vincent Meissner Trio
You do not hear slavish imitation here; this is an astonishingly balanced statement of intent from a highly original talent. He is fully aware of the foundations that his predecessors have left him and is able to use them as the jumping-off point into his own expressive world. Vincent and his fellow musicians are concerned above all to be honest and authentic in what they do. Indeed, that is something they see as far more important than being revolutionary firebrands. These are musicians with a clear sense of form and structure, sometimes finding the humorous and the euphoric, at others the melancholy and the poetry of ballads. At any event, each of them has many different sides to him as a musician, and together they find surprises and all kinds of fascinating and many-hued timbres as they develop Vincent's compositions through playing them. They experiment with complex shapes and rhythms, and yet we hear their joy in playing together. There is also a remarkable sense for melodies that are unusual and memorable. There is exploration going on here, and connections and reconnections to be found as they shake up the material and put it back together in different permutations. This is spontaneous music, and yet there is nothing random about it. Ideas are developed, refined, and deepened. Robust... refined... subtle... sparkling! This is Young, even very young, German Jazz at its best and most life-affirming.

Booklet for Eigengrau