Creativity, innovation and musicality are trade marks of the duet by Tomas Sauter and Daniel Schläppi. The duo releases a veritable revelation with their debut CD «indian summer». Both artists have been established band leaders for years, now Tomas Sauter and Daniel Schläppi position themselves as a highlight in the European jazz scene with their duet. 
With the production of «indian summer» two creative musicians met who have already become two unmistakable voices after years of intensive artistic development. While they both are authentic and of firm character as soloists, Sauter and Schläppi combine guitar and bass as two equal partners in their musical dialogue. This new casting breaks with established patterns and opens up new possibilities of interplay. 

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Tomas Sauter and Daniel Schläppi brilliantly move in the twilight zone between jazz and classical music. Without denying their roots in jazz both musicians prove adeptly that conceptions of metrics, articulation and dynamics based on classical patterns may well hold their ground in comtemporary jazz and enrichen the new music with exciting forms of expression.
They combine composition and improvisation in an original way to create an equally authentic and innovative music which turns the boundaries between classical music and jazz fluid. Following this approach the two musicians hold an elaborated tone quality in highest esteem. This priority claim, rarely met with in jazz, explains why Sauter and Schläppi were able to have mastered their first recording by the world famous sound engeneer Jan Erik Kongshaug, the preferred engeneer of such a sound esthetician as Pat Metheny, at the «Rainbow-Studio» in Oslo. What a winner!
 

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Over the last couple of years Sauter and Schläppi have developped a preference for accoustic micro-groups playing chamber music. With the duet of guitar and bass the two have found an essential instrumentation. Strung the right way, the two musicians make do with only ten strings to create relaxed moods, spontaneous intensifications, spheric worlds of sound and throbbing beats.
During an extended stay in New York Tomas Sauter studied with John Abercrombie. In addition he invested some time to write music and composed numerous great pieces. This material serves the duet as the foundation of their repertoire which has a lyrical basic mood. It offers the two musicians exactly the right combination of structure and open space. Thus Sauter and Schläppi distinguish themselves as specialists in melodiousness, subtlety and ease who find formal stringency even in long solos.
 

contemporary chamber music