Yoni Kretzmer –tenor sax
Erhard Hirt– guitar & electronics
Joe Fonda – double bass, flute
Lou Grassi – drums & percussion

Downtown Music gallery’s free in-store concert series is a three-decade institution, presenting both veteran and neophyte free improvisers, to fans crammed into the aisles of Bruce Gallanter’s basement record store in two Bridges. On a), the line-up comprised four sets. Setting the mood were Yoni Kretzmer (tenor), Erhard Hirt (guitar, visiting from Germany), Joe Fonda (bass, flute) and Lou Grassi (drums), their set marked by creative tension between Kretzmer’s forceful but warm sound and Hirt’s arsenal of electronic effects. Their second piece (of three) achieved an inspiring collective climax. (The New York City Jazz Record, Aug 2023) http://nycjazzrecord.com

Mark Whitecage (June 1939 – March 2021) – alto sax, clarinet
Erhard Hirt– guitar & electronics
Joe Fonda – double bass, flute
Lou Grassi – drums & percussion

first oncert: Downtown Music Gallery, NYC. July 5th. 2015

photo: Reiner Schönfeld

CD: recorded at BLACK BOX,  Münster on Friday Feb. 5th. 2016, on KLOPOTEC

concert review: NU-Band & Hirt

CD review: THE NEW YORK CITY JAZZ RECORD | JULY 2017
New York Cnnection by guitarist Erhard Hirt is a tangential item in the Nu Band discography but should be heard by fans. Hirt has been working in the European free jazz scene since the early ‘80s. While Nu Band is usually a composition-based group, they will occasionally engage in free improvisation. On the night before the Geneva concert (and minus Heberer), they met Hirt in a club in Münster and played a set of vital, edgy free improvisation. Hirt’s guitar and electronics bring new textures to the group and all players respond with spirited playing. They pare down into various group components with particularly inspired passages of Grassi and Fonda in duet with Hirt’s scrabbling electronics, an element rarely heard with either of these players. Whitecage plays fiercely throughout. This is an inspired set with the trio goaded and prodded by Hirt to some of their most fiery playing.
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