Christoph Stiefel’s Inner Language Trio

Inner Language Trio’s live! album launch (with guest Trish Clowes). 9th of October at Pizza Express. Preview by Rob Edgar

One of the great strengths of Basho Records is that it has documented much of the extraordinary flowering of British jazz piano talent of our time – Gwilym Simcock, Kit Downes, Nikki Iles, Liam Noble, Huw Warren, Geoff Eales,Tim Lapthorn…. 

For the first time however, the label is releasing an album by an all-European band led by a non-British pianist. The Inner Language Trio’s album Live! will be launched at Pizza Express Dean St on the 9th of October and sees Swiss pianist/composer Christoph Stiefel joined by Arne Huber on bass and Kevin Chesham on drums (the album also has drummer Lionel Friedli.)

Stiefel is a thoroughly diverse artist. As a child he was classically trained before discovering the music of rhythm and blues in his teens and, eventually, funk and jazz.

His CV is also impressive having formed his own trio/quartet in 1990, releasing 7 albums and touring all over Europe. In 1998 he premièred with the, Zürcher Kammerorchester, his first orchestral piece and in 2005 he revealed Isorhythms for solo piano and electronics.

His show at Pizza Express sees him joined by saxophonist/composer Trish Clowes and guitarist Chris Montague. Clowes recently won the jazz category in BBC 3’s New Generation Artists and her new album And in The Night-time She is There was released by Basho on September 17th.

Live! will be released by Basho on the 1st of October. Stiefel’s Inner Language Trio will play a short UK tour in October before heading off to Europe for more concerts. They will return to London for the a gig at St James’ Church in Piccadilly (part of the London Jazz Festival), where they will be sharing the stage with Tim Garland’s Korea Moves Project.