Aly Keïta comes from a Malinke Griot family from the Ivory Coast and is a master of the balafon, the African xylophone.
The musician from Côte d'Ivoire settled in Europe years ago and has since played with a number of jazz giants from keyboarder Joe Zawinul to Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek.

Since the nineties, the drummer and bandleader Jim Black has been one of the most influential figures of progressive jazz. On his Intakt Records debut, Jim Black plays with the acclaimed young pianist Elias Stemeseder and highly in-demand New York bass player Thomas Morgan contemporary jazz with distinctive arrangements, complex rhythms and expressive improvisations.

The quartet Weird Beard was founded by Zurich based saxophonist Florian Egli. Following the debut album 'Everything Moves' on Intakt Records, they release a second studio album, recorded again in the Blackbox Studio in Brittany by the out­standing sound engineer David Odlum. 'Orientation' is a sophisticated record on which Weird Beard increasingly focus their attention on the creation of moods and atmospheres.

With this recording, alto saxophonist and bandleader Angelica Niescier and pianist and composer Florian Weber, both from Cologne Germany, place themselves at the centre of the New York City jazz scene. They are joined in the NYC Five by three acclaimed jazz musicians in great demand in the Big Apple: trumpeter Ralph Alessi, bassist Christopher Tordini and drummer Tyshawn Sorey. The quintet plays highly contemporary jazz with original tunes, distinctive arrangements, complex rhythms and expressive improvisations on the album, co-produced by Niescier.

Saxophonist Florian Egli presents with his band 'Weird Beard' his debut on Intakt Records. Deeply rooted in the jazz tradition Weird Beard creates with stylistic openness an independent and characterful music in the undogmatic field of contemporary jazz. Everything Moves is a characterful album with a strong pulling power and manages to combine lyrical passages with the unpredictable.