On The Next Door Julia Hülsmann returns with the quartet from 2019’s Not Far From Here, and presents her unique pianistic voice in a varied programme of almost exclusively original music, composed by herself and her colleagues – tenor saxophonist Uli Kempendorff, Marc Muellbauer on double bass and drummer Heinrich Köbberling. A deep respect for the jazz tradition, as cultivated in the post-bop and modal jazz of the 60s, permeates this session and, with the quartet’s modern twist, sets the stage for highly expressive soloing and profound interplay.

Since they started in the early 1970’s, ECM has been giving the world one excellent jazz piano disc after another–significant names include Keith Jarrett, Chick Corea, and Paul Bley, more recently Anat Fort, Bo Stenson, and now Julia Hulsmann. Leading a trio on her ECM debut, THE END OF SUMMER, Hulsman displays a graceful, muted, and melancholy air. In the manner of Stenson and Bley, Hulsmann expresses maximum emotion and mood using the fewest (but well-placed) notes. Unlike the aforementioned gentlemen however, Hulsmann favors almost folk-like, affable, and concise melodies. Her bassist and drummer seem subdued at times, but they’re constantly lending the tunes a sense of forward motion.

Not Far From Here introduces award-winning pianist Julia Hülsmann’s new group in which her long-time working trio with Marc Muellbauer and Heinrich Köbberling (together now for 17 years) is expanded to a quartet with the addition of Berlin-based saxophonist Uli Kempendorff. In Kempendorff’s playing “both suppleness and unruliness are in ample supply”, Jazzthetik has noted, and he brings a fresh energy to the Hülsmann group concept. Each member of the quartet contributes original compositions, with Julia herself penning five new pieces for the album.