Root Area: In Pursuit of Happiness Christoph Grab, Nicole Johänntgen, Marcel Thomi, Elmar Frey

• 1 In Pursuit of Happiness 04:00
• 2 Sure?! (48 kHz) 06:10
• 3 Soulmate 05:51
• 4 Black Eyed Susan 04:30
• 5 Bandworm 05:30
• 6 Inner Song 05:05
• 7 New Horizons 06:07
• 8 The Clown 03:53
• 9 The Flight of the Fading Beauty 07:05
• Total Runtime 48:11

Info for Root Area: In Pursuit of Happiness

ROOT AREA stands for soul jazz. After three years, the top-class line-up, consisting of Christoph Grab and Nicole Johänntgen on saxophones, Marcel Thomi on Hammond organ and Elmar Frey on drums, is now making an impressive return with its new album In Pursuit Of Happiness. For the album release at Moods, Zurich guitarist Michael Bucher will also be accompanying the band. With the new album, ROOT AREA consistently continues their idea of integrating a wide variety of grooves into their music and using them as a foundation for their original compositions and improvisations. Whether bluesy boogaloo, gospel ballads, New Orleans grooves, quirky reggae or Afrobeats - ROOT AREA combine deep musical roots with the present.

The core of ROOT AREA is formed by Grab, Hammond specialist Marcel Thomi and drummer Elmar Frey - they have been travelling successfully as a trio for a number of years. Now they are taking it to the next level: With a repertoire consisting of original compositions (8 x Grab, 1 x Frey) and with exquisite saxophone support from Nicole Johänntgen and Victoria Mozalevskaya. Thanks to the exemplary rehearsal skills of the trio and the quick grasp and impressive improvisational spontaneity of Johänntgen and Mozalevskaya, it took just one day to record ROOT AREA's debut album.

The repertoire is extremely varied, focussing primarily on feel-good moods and concise grooves. Grab traces his musical roots back to the Uri folk song ‘Meiteli wänn du witt go tanze’ and thus to his childhood. ‘Abyss’ has a James Bond-like melody. ‘Harlekin’ triggers great emotions with its combination of emphasis and melancholy. The piece ‘In Communion’ is dedicated to Krishnamurti and has a spiritual touch, which is reinforced by the ‘churchy’ sound of the organ. The title track has a second-line groove that immediately gets your legs moving and could hardly be bettered in New Orleans ... And in his track ‘We're Coming to Town’, drummer Frey develops a wonderful swing drive, which is followed up in the closing number ‘Love in the Mist’.

With their energy and joy of playing, ROOT AREA are sure to put people in a good mood and get their ears burning in many different neighbourhoods in the future.

Christoph Grab, tenor and soprano saxophone
Nicole Johänntgen, alto saxophone
Victoria Mozalevskaya, tenor saxophone
Marcel Thomi, Hammond organ
Elmar Frey, drums

Christoph Grab
Studied at the Swiss Jazz School Bern (saxophone, composition, and arrangement). His teachers and mentors included Andy Scherrer, Sal Nistico, Jerry Bergonzi, Joe Lovano, and Dave Liebman. He has made numerous recordings for radio and television and performed countless tours and concerts around the world. He has performed with Ray Anderson, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Irene Schweizer, Benny Golson, Joe Beck, Mark Egan, Danny Gottlieb, Frank Moebus, Axel Dörner, Burhan Oecal, Harald Haerter, and many more.

Christoph Grab is currently internationally active with his projects BLOSSOM (Grab, Alessi, Traxel, Baschnagel), REFLECTIONS (Grab, Thoeni, Tschopp, Oester, Baschnagel), and ROOT AREA (Grab, Johänntgen, Thomi, Frey).

In addition to his work as a freelancer in the Swiss jazz scene, he is a member of many established formations, including TOUGH TENOR, Christoph Steiner's Escape Argot, Reto Anneler's STILLE POST, Baumann/Grab/Haemmerli/Renold, Raphael Jost & Lots of Horns, Zurich Composers Collective, ELLINGTONALITY, Axel Fischbacher Oktett, Spittin' Horns, Elmar Frey Septett, etc. Previous formations include RAW VISION (Grab, Graupe, Lüscher, Walser, Paratte), SCIENCE FICTION THEATER, Zurich Jazz Orchestra, Neuromodulator, KOJ/Nadelöhr, Kurt Weil Vibes Revisited, ContempArabic Jazz Ensemble, Marion Denzler Group, The Blindside, Lukas Bitterlin Quartett, Blastic, Grab/Kopf Quartett, etc.

His intensive work with live electronics and his performances with hacked and His toys, transformed into sound machines, also gained him attention in the electronic music and DJ scene.

In addition to his active musical career, Christoph Grab has been a professor of saxophone and improvisation at the Jazz Faculty of the Zurich University of the Arts since 1998.

He lives in Zurich with his partner and two children.

This album contains no booklet.