KUHN FU
Biography
KUHN FU is a paranoid prog punk jazz performance.
Christian Kühn (Germany)
is the German bandleader who moves like a rat on stage. He has been accused of schizophrenia by the jazz press and is constantly fighting a war against „the invisible jazz wall“. He talks a lot, on and off stage. In Berlin, he takes part in wild gatherings purely for social research, to have stories for his programmatic music.
Ziv Taubenfeld (Israel)
was born in Karmiel and recently became a father. Unfortunately it’s hard to argue with a father; that’s why he wins most arguments. Improvising on the bass clarinet is his way of being. He searches for the pure primitive that is free from time when leading ‘Full Sun’, a fairly large ensemble based on the Amsterdam impro scene.
Esat Ekincioğlu (Turkey)
has been trying to destroy his cheap pressboard bass since 2012. There is more duct tape on it than wood left. He is a true master of the „Electric Turkish Bass Solo“. Born in Istanbul one cannot judge him without having eaten his lentil soup. When not breaking things with KUHN FU, he leads AVA Trio, an ethnojazz trio that tours the world.
John Dikeman (United States)
Is a beast on the tenor sax. Some even say he’s the reincarnation of Albert Ayler. His ear shattering volume and intensity make him a great new asset to KUHN FU. His thick American accent almost make him a parody of an American cowboy who plays free Jazz.
Sofía Salvo (Argentina)
Sofía Salvo is a baritone sax player and improviser from Buenos Aires, currently living in Berlin. Her performances include a strong combination between acoustic noisy sounds and dark introspective melodies.
George Hadow (England)
comes from Devon, loves fish & chips and Indian music. He plays loud drums but is a quiet person by nature. On the Autobahn touring with Günther the van, you see him looking out the window, headphones on, tapping his fingers. We once asked him, “what music are you listening to?” He replied „not music, it’s a metronome“.
Current Album
KUHN FU VI - Live in Saalfelden
Christian Kühn ( DE ) - guitar, voice, composition
Tobias Delius ( UK ) - clarinet
John Dikeman ( US ) - tenor saxophone, voice
Ziv Taubenfeld ( ISR ) - bass clarinet
Sofia Salvo ( ARG ) - baritone saxophone
Esat Ekincioglu ( TR ) - bass, voice
George Hadow ( UK ) - drums
Not only the band name is martial. In their "paranoid prog-punk-jazz performance", guitarist and conference speaker Christian Achim Kühn's band KUHN FU turns everything upside down. Zappa meets cabaret, surf sounds and metal riffs ride the Chattanooga choo-choo, while Shakespeare, Brecht and Monty Python are the godfathers.
Since 2012, the band around guitarist Christian Kühn has been developing a unique and highly individual form of jazz rock (or rock jazz) that oscillates between parody and a great seriousness with which it plays against musical blinkers. Kühn's international ensemble with John Dikeman (tenor saxophone), Tobias Delius (tenor saxophone, clarinet), Ziv Taubenfeld (bass clarinet), Sofia Salvo (baritone saxophone), Esat Ekincioglu (bass) and George Hadow (drums) plays the pieces, which are overflowing with melodies and compositional ideas, as if everything depended on it. The comedy that is always present in KUHN FU's music does not detract from its intensity.
On Jazz Is Expensive, Kühn retells the Brothers Grimm fairy tale "The Fisherman and his Wife" in a new and different way. Kühn's performance does the rest: With a forced German accent, he transforms the story into a modern fairy tale in English. The main character is the fisherman Marcel De Champignon, a horn player in search of the perfect melody - "the melody that makes millions". This wish is to be fulfilled by a fish called "Bruno the Architect". The website Illsebill.com also plays a supporting role.
The second CD of this double album, Live in Saalfelden, shows how the lyrics are created spontaneously on stage. Apart from the KUHN FU classics Nosferatu and Maharani, this CD contains only new material. The immense joy of playing with which the musicians of KUHN FU go to work is the same in the studio as it is on stage. Whether in the variations on the always extremely beautiful melodies, which Christian Kühn composes as a starting point for the pieces, or in the free improvisations: A band that is perfectly attuned to each other develops a music out of the common movement that has never been heard before.
The "invisible jazz wall", as Christian Kühn calls it, which is supposed to protect tradition from the vulgar, the carnivalesque and the nonsensical, should be torn down. KUHN FU are something like the trombones of Jericho in this picture.
Discography
- KUHN FU VI - Live in Saalfelden
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