Richard Koch - Rays Of Light (2025)

Richard Koch did it again! One of the most independent and unmistakable jazz trumpeters of our time is back with his fourth studio album. After three quartet records, he now presents us with a new work as bandleader in a new quintet: “Rays Of Light”. It will be released on 04.07.2025 by Fun in the church.

In terms of instrumentation and instrumentation, this acoustic work could have been performed in the 19th century. We hear Fabiana Striffler on violin, Valentin Butt on accordion, Andreas Lang on double bass, Nora Thiele on frame drums and Richard Koch on trumpet. However, Koch's compositions are interspersed with the transatlantic history of pop music over the last 150 years: from the American Folk Book to Internet radio - and back to the village festival in his adopted home of Wustermark, from where he can always travel quickly by regional train to the jazz capital of Berlin.

At a time when the transatlantic relationship is threatening to tip politically, Koch's “Rays Of Light” are just the right thing to counter the whole madness culturally as a European musician. After all, it is particularly evident in music how our cultural DNA is similar and has always influenced each other. Just as all kinds of European folk and salon music, crossed with Afro-American and oriental influences - influenced by Christianity, Islam and voodoo - have given rise to a magical, earth-spanning, creole music: jazz. And we haven't even talked about Bach, Dylan or the Beatles yet.