Dieter Ilg is among the leading jazz bassists in the world. An exceptionally gifted player, he has, for example, worked with Randy Brecker, Charlie Mariano, and the Mangelsdorff/Dauner Quintet, and also currently has a duo with Till Brönner. However, it is above all his own projects that have defined him. In these he has explored his classical roots and transferred them into jazz with intent, thoroughness and consistency. In 2009 he formed a trio with pianist Rainer Böhm and drummer Patrice Héral, and together they fulfilled Ilg’s long-cherished wish to re-conceive Guiseppe Verdi’s “Otello” according to his own musical conception of the work.

In his selection from Bach’s works, Ilg has not confined himself to the familiar. “Air” and “Siciliano” are the only two tracks on the album with the status of “hits”. There are four Goldberg Variations and two Preludes from the Clavierbüchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach “which every piano student knows. They were also the very first pieces I played on the piano, and they never leave you,” says Ilg. During his period of listening, pieces which seemed to leap up at him were the Harpsichord Concerto BWV1052 and the “Sarabande”, “which” says Ilg, “was ideal to make a song from.” The delicate tracery of Héral’s drumming seems to find its way of its own accord, whereas Ilg and Böhm – either solo or in unison, but always as equals – address the harmonic and rhythmic forms and spontaneously make something new from them. Ilg, once again, has taken the work of an old master and made it sound new and fresh. “B-A-C-H” has a depth about it, and yet is completely approachable.