Jochen Baldes (sax) grew up in Zurich. He started out as a painter and sculptor and had various solo and group exhibitions. In 1988 he received a scholarship from the canton of Zurich. He then studied at and graduated from the Swiss Jazz School in Bern. He participated in workshops with Rick Margitza, Ray Anderson, Mark Turner, Cedar Walton, Wynton Marsalis, Billy Higgins, Tom Harrell, and Kenny Werner. Appearances at home and abroad include the Jazz festivals of Montreux, Willisau, Schaffhausen, Terneuzen (Netherlands), Grahamstown and Splashy Fen (South Africa).
Baldes worked with the writer Uwe Timm on the occasion of the publication of his novel “Rot” (German for “Red”), as well as with the musicians Andy Brugger, Christoph Stiefel, Nat Su, Martin Streule, Chris Wiesendanger, Dominik Burkhalter, Matthias Spillman, Christoph Baumann, Michael Gassmann, Nik Bärtsch, Robbie Jansen, Patrice Moret, and many more. He is the Bandleader of the formations “Jochen Baldes Subnoder” and “Kobal”, with whom he released ve albums.
www.jochenbaldes.ch

Franz Hellmüller (guitar) studied at the American School of Modern Music in Paris, followed by a Diploma at the Lucerne School of Music and was a fellow of the International Association of Schools of Jazz in 2002 in Helsinki under Dave Liebman. He received the Axelle and Max Koch Prize as well as the Prize of the Pfeifer Foundation and was nominated for the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik in 2014 and for the BMW Jazz Welt Award in 2015. In addition to many concerts in Switzerland he already played in Germany, France, Poland, Lithuania, Finland, Austria, Montenegro, Russia and Italy.
www.hellmuller.com

Patrick Sommer (bass) grew up in Bergdietikon but now lives in Zurich together
with his family. He studied electric and double bass at the Swiss Jazz School in Bern,
as well as in Los Angeles. Sommer plays the bass in various Swiss formations, for
example with Max Lässer, Zürich Jazz Orchestra, Adrian Frey, Marianne Racine,
Klaus Koenig, Martin Lechner or Tony Renold. He works as a freelance musician and
frequently plays concerts at home and abroad.
www.patricksommer.net

Tony Renold (percussion) is what you would call a “Musician’s Musician”. Although the jazz drummer from Aargau is one of the most prominent jazz percussionists in the country, it is rst and foremost his colleagues who appreciate his talent and his musicality. With Renold as a band member one can rely on a technically highly capable and very precise and punctual drummer. And even more: as a sensitive percussionist, Renold knows how to emphatically underline the fever curve of expression. At times, he reduces his accompaniment to very few but assured impulses, at times he uses clever ideas to draw soloists into a laidback dialogue. In this way, Renold has proven his worth in national and international formations with (among others) Daniel Schnyder, Christoph Baumann and Adrian Frey. But he can also take the role of a stylistically assured bandleader, as one can hear on his new album “Places”. He has been teaching at the Zurich University of the Arts for over a decade.
www.zhdk.ch/?person/detail&id=150990

Music as a road movie for mind, body, and soul. Music that captivates, astonishes, makes you laugh, move, and dream. Just as Miles Davis said about his Album “Filles de Kilimanjaro”: “A light show for the blind.” Four musicians span a musical arc of tension and relaxation, silence and agitation, an arc that allows most beautiful melodies as well as abrupt breaks. Venturing every evening into the unfa- miliar, to go on a tour de force without a safety net – that is the power of music.