Theo Bleckmann

Theo Bleckmann – My Choice (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/44,1 kHz | Time – 01:19:42 minutes | 801 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Winter & Winter

Theo Bleckmann (* 28. Mai 1966 in Dortmund) ist ein deutscher Jazzsänger und Komponist, der im Grenzbereich von Jazz, Neuer, elektronischer Musik und Performance arbeitet. Er wurde für den Grammy nominiert und mit dem ECHO Jazz der deutschen Phono Akademie ausgezeichnet.

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Theo Bleckmann – Hello Earth! – The Music of Kate Bush (2011)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:00:45 minutes | 1,33 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Winter & Winter

Vocalist Theo Bleckmann is best known for creating vast sonic spaces with subverbal textures, electronics, and with the help of backing musicians such as John Hollenbeck, Ben Monder, or the band Kneebody. On Hello Earth, Bleckmann showcases his mastery of affective and lyrical nuances with interpretations of songs by British art rocker Kate Bush.

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Theo Bleckmann – Elegy (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 47:04 minutes | 851 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © ECM

Beyond being a vocalist of rare purity and daring, Theo Bleckmann is a sound painter who creates what JazzTimes has described aptly as “luminous webs” in music. The German-born New Yorker – after appearing on two ECM albums by Meredith Monk and another by Julia Hülsmann – makes his striking label debut as a leader with Elegy. This album showcases Bleckmann as a composer as much as a singer, with several instrumental pieces voiced by what he calls his “ambient” band of kindred-spirit guitarist Ben Monder, keyboardist Shai Maestro and the subtle rhythm team of Chris Tordini and John Hollenbeck. Highlights include Bleckmann’s sublime rendition of Stephen Sondheim’s “Comedy Tonight” (“tragedy tomorrow… comedy tonight”), as well as the mellifluous vocalise of “Little Elegy” and achingly poetic “To Be Shown to Monks at a Certain Temple.”

“This record is called Elegy for a reason – each of its songs relates to death or transcendence in some existential way,” Bleckmann explains. “Several of the pieces are instrumental, with ‘Cortege’ a funeral march. In the song ‘Take My Life,’ I imagine what it would be like to die, losing facility bit by bit: losing your voice, your heartbeat, your breath. I wrote that one thinking about Bach and his cantatas, especially ‘Ich habe genug,’ which is about joyfully going into the afterlife. For this album, I wanted to create songs that deal with this subject matter not in a morbid way but with some light to it.”

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Theo Bleckmann – At Night (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:03:32 minutes | 1,14 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Songlines

Theo Bleckmann is the renaissance man of contemporary vocal performance, an emotional jazz singer who is willing to try wild ideas on this 2007 album like processing his voice through an electronically altered toy megaphone or a plunger. Guitarist Ben Monder’s peers hold him in considerable awe for his sound, now completely his own, as his long fingers stretch across strings and frets to create chords never heard before. At Night is a study in contrasts that flow together into a unified statement, bound by the recurring texts of Sufi poet Rumi.

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Theo Bleckmann – The Parsonage (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 44:05 minutes | 765 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Sunnyside

New York is a city of ghosts. An ordinary-looking building on an unexceptional street can harbor the spirits of countless human dramas of past years: family secrets, forgotten news, lost traditions, heroes unsung, artworks unseen….

If every building on every block has stories to tell, one place in particular has a history like no other. The inconspicuous four-story brick townhouse at 64 East 7th Street was at the heart of a long series of dramatic moments in New York’s cultural history, from the day of the city’s first major disaster through the Beat movement and the punk era to 21st-century gentrification.

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