She does it again. Cologne-based saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Luise Volkmann is a passionate border crosser who expands her vocabulary from album to album. Her aim has always been to conceive the unthinkable and realize the impossible. She has also applied this maxim to the third album by her band Été Large. The title, tellingly, is 'The Stories We Tell.'

Let's take a look back. The large formation Été Large was conceived as big from the start. Not because it is a band with many members—there are quite a few of those in Germany—but because Luise Volkmann moved with seven-league boots beyond traditional notions of big band and conventional genre formats. It was never about the thousandth fusion package of certain styles or new perspectives on what already existed. Instead, it was about an anarchistic alternative to the established music business, whatever you want to call or locate it—without making any concessions. With Été Large, Luise Volkmann unleashes a genuine creative force that defies comparison. The group’s first programmatic album 'Eudaimonia' (2017) was about proving something. In the second, much more personal chapter 'When The Birds Upraise Their Choir' (2020), she demonstrated that she no longer needed to prove anything. Now follows the third act, 'The Stories We Tell,' where she can leave behind everything apodictic and simply tell stories. 'For me, the first two albums had the character of a homage,' recaps Luise Volkmann. 'That is not the case at all with the new album. As it’s simply about storytelling, the strength of the album lies more in a kind of introversion.'

These stories reflect a new commitment to simplicity. Everything superfluous must be stripped away so that the passion can manifest itself all the more clearly—and the stories that need to be told. Luise Volkmann is a brilliant storyteller who implements her stories with narrative power and poetic sensitivity. Music is not an end in itself. It’s about something. Every note, every syllable triggers something in the listener, but also globally in the long term, according to the butterfly wing theory, because the energy of the songs often takes unexpected paths. The composer is aware of this responsibility, and this mission is palpable, even if it is conveyed here in an absolutely unobtrusive and unpretentious manner.

With the voices of Casey Moir and Laurin Oppermann, flutist Conni Trieder, saxophonists Peter Ewald and Rémi Fox, trumpeter Johannes Böhmer, trombonist Marleen Dahms, cellist Johanna Stein, bassist Athina Kontou, pianist Yannick Lestra, guitarist Paul Jarret, and drummer Max Santner, she has welded together a collective whose members she has taken with her on her musical journey from Paris via Berlin and Leipzig to Cologne. Besides this autobiographical aspect of her band, all those involved bring entirely different backgrounds, which merge to form a colorful kaleidoscope of playing styles and preferences. In typical Luise Volkmann fashion, Été Large is both what it is and the opposite of it.

'The Stories We Tell' marks the tenth anniversary of Été Large. But this is not the only reason why the album documents the result of an individual and collective maturing process. The leader and her collective have succeeded in focusing on the essentials. In her arrangements, Luise Volkmann takes a very cautious approach to the possibilities of a large formation. The sounds of the individual instruments are given plenty of room to breathe. She works with well-contrasted, congenially complementary human voices. Yet each instrument also acquires an individual color that not only flanks or underpins the vocals but in turn makes non-verbal statements. Only in the subtle osmosis of voices and instruments can the songs fully unfold their ultimate effect. Luise Volkmann approaches a kind of artistic perfection, fully aware that she neither can nor wants to achieve it. Because ultimately, it is also about the spaces in between, which only the listeners can fill with their imagination.

In this way, Luise Volkmann creates a world that is closed in itself and yet open on all sides, in which the ear is just as much a creative part as all the actors involved. The power often arises from the quiet tones, which are often heightened to a universal fullness. For example, a quiet folk song can unexpectedly lead to a frenetic saxophone solo. It is a constant growth and change, a musical globe in permanent motion and transformation. Music that doesn't stop even when it has faded away, because Luise Volkmann's hymn-like tunes stick with you and are enriched by yet another experience with every new listen. This consistent interplay of a physical and metaphysical offer to approach each other is the logical continuation of Été Large's first two records, only on a completely new level. This is a band that you can listen to while being constantly amazed, but that has much more to say. That's why Luise Volkmann should have the last word here:

'In times when polarization is becoming more and more noticeable, I want to give my music the power to juxtapose ambivalences with its stories. I can be angry or sad about different things at the same time and still show understanding for other feelings or attitudes. Making the complexity of thought and action tangible and thus creating the basis for an open dialogue is important to me. That's why I place the verbal and non-verbal sides of storytelling on an equal footing.'