David Becker has evolved into an outstanding instrumentalist of the international jazz guitar scene. With "Batavia", this American musician – who makes his home in Wuppertal and L.A.– has produced an album with a highly personal background: It documents the history of his family roots from Germany and Holland to Indonesia and tells their story of captivity in a Japanese concentration camp during WWII. The CD was recorded with founding DBT member and brother Bruce on drums, Bolle Dieckmann on bass and other guest performers such as Russell Ferrante (Yellowjackets) on piano. The instrumentals are in the typical style of a modern jazz trio, or they appear as solo acoustic guitar pieces and even timelessly beautiful sound paintings. "Batavia" is an exciting, imaginative and emotional musical journey that carries the listener off into the wide world of an extraordinary person and musician.

David Becker who was born in Ohio has played support for Miles Davis, Chick Corea and the Yellowjackets. As a student of guitar legend Joe Diorio, he belongs to the best guitarists within the genre for two decade and is a welcome guest at all major festivals. David Becker presents the album “Leaving Argentina”, which is inspired by his journeys to the land of the gauchos and represents a perfect symbiosis of Latin American musical culture and American-imbued guitar jazz. This ensemble, with bass Bolle Diekmann, percussionist Bruce Becker and Daria Polonara as guest on Bandoneon, shows the highest performance culture, and provides the perfect basis for Becker's elegant guitar playing. With his warm, mature tone, his fine phrasings and melodious diversity, David Becker presents 12 expressive compositions for connoisseurs of subtle guitar esthetics. “Leaving Argentina” explains why the top writer Roger Willemsen called him “one of the best jazz guitarists of all times”.

David Becker is one of the young, eloquent jazz guitarists who is at home in both traditional and modern styles. In 2004 he fulfilled his dream: cutting a duo CD with his role model and mentor Joe Diorio, one of the great masters of the jazz guitar, who is known for his intervallic lines. This summit meeting is an intimate conversation between two musicians, who inspire each other mutually and celebrate a magical musical moment with perfectly rounded interaction, full of respect for jazz history and yet with visions that go farther. This is audible in the repertoire and the choice of instruments: David Becker performs on tabla guitar, nine-stringed acoustic guitar and synthesizer.

The exceptional guitarist from New York, who was influenced by bluesman Reverend Gary Davis, has already scintillated at the side of world music star Bob Brozman, master guitarist Attila Zoller and folk icon Paul Simon. For her part, vocalist Susanne Vogt knows how to be convincing with her extraordinary voice and charisma, be that in a big band, a jazz ensemble, a chanson or an art song. With “Our Of The Blue”, this creative duo is inviting listeners to a conversation, which amalgamates jazz, Latin, blues and world music to form an unusually artistic statement, from the deeply-felt Sam Cooke cover “I’ll Come Running Back” and the raw Robert Johnson blues “Come On In My Kitchen”, all the way to the dreamy, ballad-like own composition “A Night In Tbilisi”. Cultivated, elegant and with grand sound, the German-American duo succeeded with “Out Of The Blue” in producing an intimate and emotional production full of harmonic subtleties, that continue reverberating in a most pleasant way.

This guitarist from Frankfurt, hailed as the “guitar wunderkind of the 1980s” and the focus of amazement, praise and admiration, made his mark as a master of the jazz guitar thanks to numerous albums, worldwide concerts and collaborations with Attila Zoller, John Scofield and Larry Coryell. “Bouncing Around” demonstrates once again that Sagmeister has long devised his own personal, vigorous handwriting from earlier times when he was influenced by Pat Martino, Wes Montgomery and John Coltrane. Double bassist Martin Gjakonovski and percussionist Michael Küttner, with their grooving rhythm work, form a perfect backdrop to Sagmeister’s elegant performance on the archtop jazz guitar. 12 compositions arose, in a palpable and warm, mature tonality and an absolutely inexhaustible diversity of phrasings – as the title says, “Bouncing Around”, almost playful, and yet at the highest artistic level. Michael Sagmeister has succeeded in producing a reference work for German jazz guitar - not only for the fans and aficionados of subtle guitar esthetics.

“Soul Ticket” not only reveals the lyrical sides of the German star jazz guitarist Michael Sagmeister, but also harks back to his roots in blues, rock and soul. Together with the German-Mexican vocalist Britta Medeiros and his band, Sagmeister has recorded an album located somewhere between soul, pop and fusion that will certainly bring him a harvest of new fans. His virtuosic guitar-playing technique always serves the songs, yet he doesn’t pass up grandiose solos. With six of his own compositions, Sagmeister once again proves his mettle as a songsmith in the soul, funk, jazz and modern fusion realm. The second part of the album consists of well-crafted cover versions of, amongst others, Al Jarreau, Jose Feliciano, or Wes Montgomery. “Soul Ticket” s a production filled with soul and will appeal to both fans of high-quality instrumental music, as well as the connoisseurs of the classic soul-pop repertoire.

For connoisseurs of modern jazz guitar, “Conversation” will be a revelation. The interplay between the two guitarists Pat Martino and Michael Sagmeister is marked by profound mutual understanding – which is no small wonder, considering Michael Sagmeister has long been interested in Martino’s music. In the meantime, these two world-class musicians are connected by a personal friendship, and they now communicate as two equals. Joining them are Michael Sagmeister’s long-standing rhythm group, Michael Küttner on drums, Thomas Heidepriem on bass. The powerful and flowing grooves of the two musicians form the basis for the unfolding of well-set lines and improvisations by Martino and Sagmeister. The tradition of modern jazz guitar can be followed in exemplary form on “Conversation”, and at the same time, one can hear how a guitar duo should sound in our time.

Wanting to introduce the guitarist Michael Sagmeister is something like trying to carry coals to Newcastle. After all, like hardly anyone else, Sagmeister contributed to the Renaissance of the jazz guitar - and perhaps to all of jazz - in Germany at the beginning of the Eighties. In his production “Here and Now“ the Frankfurt native presents himself from his best acoustic sides - melodic, lyrical, rich in moods, and always technically beyond all doubt. The very special fascination of this production is based on the extraordinarily fortunate matching with Dave Samuels, who with good reason must be considered one of the most important contemporary mallet-players. On Here and Now, Sagmeister and Samuels achieve such an emphatic musical eloquence that even after listening just once, there is the temptation of asking for the continuation of this project as soon as possible.