Florin Kuppers & Juliana Blumenschein - In Between (2023)

Music makes you happy. It does this first of all for its creators, which can be clearly seen on the cover of "In Between". But the eleven songs also make the listeners happy, because the radiant optimism spread by the great singer Juliana Blumenschein and the virtuoso guitarist Florin Küppers is infectious and soon you have a big smile on your face, although they also have sad songs in their repertoire. This effect actually takes place just after just a few bars of the opener "I've Got the World on a String". Brazilian songs such as "E Presciso Perdoar" (with Viviane de Farias as guest vocalist) and "O Pato" – two classics by Joao Gilberto – are on the album alongside famous American standards such as "Nobody Else But Me" by Jerome Kern and "I'll Be Seeing You", which Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra popularized. "Florin and I have known each other for a very long time," Juliana Blumenschein said. "That's the reason why the choice of repertoire was quite natural.” How Blumenschein and Küppers master a virtuoso showpiece like Annie Ross’ "Twisted” is really impressive. The song, which was catapulted into the orbit of popular music by the vocal trio Lambert, Hendricks & Ross ("Lambert, Hendricks & Ross: they were my Beatles", Joni Mitchell once said), is extremely difficult to sing and play with its interval jumps and its harmonic and rhythmic twists. It sounds relaxed and casual with Blumenschein and Küppers. "I've been singing 'Twisted‘ for years," the singer said. "That is also important, so that you can convincingly convey the wit and the dynamics of the song. We like virtuoso things, even though we don't actually see ourselves as virtuosos. The song is very well received live and is fun for the people." Berlin singer Erik Leuthäuser joins in on two standards. "Erik is a super guy who is sometimes in Mannheim because of a theater production that is still being performed," Juliana Blumenschein stated. “I wanted to have a male voice as a contrast to my voice on the album. We were able to record in a quite relaxed atmosphere, since Erik was in Mannheim anyway. Actually, I just wanted to record 'Never Will I Marry‘ with him, but then we still had time for an encore. 'I Get Along Without You Very Well‘ was super fun and a lot of it was created spontaneously." The singer has a close relationship with Brazilian music, because she is Brazilian. "My parents are from Brazil, because my great-grandfather emigrated to Brazil," she explained. "My father then returned to Germany, even though he couldn't speak any German. But he felt that he more chances in Germany as a classical pianist." And the Brazilian songs are a piece of cake for Juliana Blumenschein's musical partner. "The guitar is an integral part in Brazilian music, while in jazz it was only an accompanying instrument for a long time," Florin Küppers stated. "For me, that's exactly where the tension lies, because the American standards are harmonically similar to the Brazilian songs, but both are very different rhythmically and in terms of phrasing," Blumenschein and Küppers met during their studies at the University of Mannheim and not only play together as a duo, but also in the singer's quintet and the ten-piece ensemble Grupo de Encontro. The duo then came into focus during the corona pandemic, because when there were opportunities for concerts, they were much easier to realize as a duo than as a ten-piece band. "We see ourselves as storytellers on stage," the guitarist said, "and so far this has been very well received. I think the audience likes to be guided through many different worlds, but that's not the only reason we keep the individual songs short. I would also find it boring on the album if every song included a long guitar solo." Reviews in the press are always positive, which is in the nature of things, but in the case of "In Between", you want to praise it even more: Listen to this record; it will make you happy!