When saxophonist Timo Vollbrecht set out to record Bremen New York, he wasn’t just making an album—he was building a bridge between two worlds he calls home. The project brings together a dream lineup: Ralph Alessi on trumpet, Elias Stemeseder on piano, Chris Tordini on bass, and Thomas Strønen on drums. It’s a gathering of international voices, each with a distinct musical dialect, speaking in the common language of jazz.
For Vollbrecht, this record is as much about place as it is about music. Fifteen years ago, he left Berlin for New York, chasing both education and the pulse of the city’s jazz scene. Since then, he’s carved out a multifaceted career as a performer, composer, Ivy League professor, and scholar. Yet the connection to his European roots remains strong—especially to Bremen, a city that’s played host to his artistic milestones.
The album was recorded entirely live in Bremen’s legendary Sendesaal, a venue whose acoustic warmth shapes every note. Vollbrecht’s compositions were written with this space in mind, the room’s resonance guiding the band’s phrasing and pacing. “Jazz is an art form that really thrives when it’s played live,” he says. “It’s the synergy with the audience that can lift the music to completely new heights.”
The opener, Com Tempo, begins with a nod to the late ’60s—Alessi’s trumpet gliding over intricate bass-and-drum interplay—before Vollbrecht’s signature lyricism takes center stage. Stemeseder’s piano, when it enters, feels less like an addition and more like a new dimension unfolding. Throughout the record, Strønen’s gran cassa drum rumbles like a heartbeat, expanding the sonic palette.
While Vollbrecht has explored wildly different sound worlds—like the electro-acoustic landscapes of his Fly Magic project—Bremen New York is a return to a “classic” quintet form, albeit with his modern sensibilities. The album sits at the intersection of chamber-music elegance and deep jazz lineage, evoking the spirit of live recordings by Joe Henderson or Keith Jarrett, but never mimicking them.
The magic here lies not just in composition, but in trust. With little rehearsal and only one recording day, Vollbrecht gave his band space to shape the music in real time. The result is a collection of pieces—Brighton Blues, Spicy Moon, New York Love Affair—that feel both meticulously crafted and impossibly free.
Upcoming performances will see this quintet bringing their synergy to audiences from New York to Cairo, a fitting journey for music that was born at the crossroads of continents. For Timo Vollbrecht, Bremen New York isn’t just an album—it’s proof that when the right musicians meet in the right room at the right moment, the results can be timeless.
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