Richard Koch did it again! One of the most distinctive and unmistakable jazz trumpeters of our time is back with his fourth studio album. After three quartet records, he now presents a new work as bandleader with his new quintet: “Rays Of Light”.

In terms of the lineup and instrumentation, this acoustic work could already have been performed in the 19th century. We hear Fabiana Striffler on violin, Valentin Butt on accordion, Andreas Lang on double bass, Nora Thiele on frame drums, and Richard Koch on trumpet. However, Koch’s compositions are infused with the transatlantic history of popular music spanning the past 150 years: from the American folk book to internet radio – and back to the village festival in his adopted home of Wustermark, from where he can quickly travel by regional train to the jazz capital Berlin.

At a time when transatlantic relations are threatening to take a political turn for the worse, Koch’s “Rays Of Light” come at just the right moment to offer a cultural counterpoint to all the madness, also from the perspective of a European musician. After all, it is particularly evident in music how similar our cultural DNA is and how it has continually influenced one another. Through all the various forms of European folk and salon music, crossed with African-American and Oriental influences – shaped by everything from Christianity and Islam to Voodoo – a magical, earth-spanning, Creole music emerged: jazz. And we haven’t even talked about Bach, Dylan, or the Beatles yet.