Break, paradigm shift, introspection.
Technology, time travel and a duo with my singing voice.

Album

1. Fools Rush In (m: Rube Bloom; l: Johnny Mercer; 1940)
2. Pennies From Heaven (m: Arthur Johnston; l: Johnny Burke; 1936)
3. Interlude I (m: Holger Scheidt; 2022)
4. Dancing On The Ceiling (m: Richard Rogers; l: Lorenz Hart; 1930)
5. Interlude II (m: Astor Piazzola; 1988)
6. Vuelvo Al Sur (m: Astor Piazzolla; l: Fernando Solanas; 1988)
7. September Song (m: Kurt Weill; l: Maxwell Anderson; 1938)
8. Interlude III (m: Holger Scheidt; 2022)
9. Wenn Ich Mir Was Wünschen Dürfte (m/l: Friedrich Holländer; 1930)
10. For All We Know (m: J. Fred Coots; l: Sam M. Lewis; 1934)
11. Hymn A L’Amour (m: Marguerite Monnot; l: Edith Piaf; 1950)

Live

On the 20th of February 2020 I sat on a plane from Berlin to Barcelona next to a person with very serious symptoms of a respiratory disease. The annual tech fare in Barcelona, which was supposed to take place during that week, had just been canceled as a consequence of Europe’s first efforts to react to the outbreak of a new virus, called SARS-CoV- 2. Not knowing that it would be the last concert I was going to play in more than a year, I was happy to have the chance to finally perform the repertoire of my 2018 enja records release Schwimmende Elefanten for the lovely people of Jazz Terrassa together with my friends Marc Ayza from Barcelona, Voro Garcia from Valencia and Peter Ehwald, who was traveling with me from Berlin.

On the 10th of March 2020 I sat on a balcony in the Berlin opera house listening to Georges Bizet’s Carmen and 2 teenage guitar students of mine perform with the state opera’s children’s choir taking part in the production. After the performance had ended the orchestra’s conductor, and general director of the Berlin state opera, the famous Daniel Barenboim came on stage and made the announcement that this would have been the last performance of this work and that all further events at the opera house would be suspended from the next day on.

Still incredulous of what was going on around me I went to see my friend Benedikt Jahnel’s trio play at A-trane in Berlin the night after. During that evening I asked A-trane’s owner Sedal Sardan, if he would expect to having to shut down the club, which he said he wouldn’t.

Yet 2 or 3 days later all public performances and events were canceled as a consequence of goverment directives.

On the 17th of March 2020 I was told that from the next day on until further notice I could not be in a room with my students anymore.

In little more than 3 weeks my life as a professional musician had reached point 0.

First time I heard the idea to give lessons via online video tools, I thought that that would be impossible. – But it was not.

Once I had overcome the shock and started to feel more confident that I would be able to deal with the situation, a process set in, which I wouldn’t have expected to live through before very old age. Introspection led me back in time. I started to time travel my 10 year journey in the South of Europe and North America, New York City, Boston, Barcelona, Montpellier, on to my life before that departure, Munich, Rosenheim, glimpses of my first five years in the city of Wuerzburg.

Growing up in the Bavarian village of Neubeuern (Rosenheim) in the 1990s, I spent much of my time in my room playing guitar and singing, while increasingly feeling a great deal of „Wanderlust“. After graduating from high school in 1998, I let that feeling take over and set out to explore the world, the world of music. That departure afforded me the incredible chance to meet and play with and learn from all those outstanding musicians from all over the world.

Now in March 2020, after 2 decades of travel, love of people and mostly instrumental music in all different kinds of group settings, I once again was alone in a room about the same size as back in the day. Alone with my instrument and my voice. Only was I in Berlin not the Bavarian village, and only was my instrument an upright bass not a guitar.

In September of 2020 I bought a new computer, a microphone and an audio interface. At the beginning of 2021 I started experimenting, and encouraged by my love Claudia, in early 2022 I decided to really do it and go ahead with the recording of a solo album in my very room, on which I would sing for the first time in pretty precisely 20 years. I applied for a so-called Neustart Kultur grant from the Deutscher Musikrat with a demo and got it. I called my dear old friend from college the sound engineer and fellow musician Roni Amir in Modi’in, Israel, and asked, if he would be willing to work with me on this. He said yes.

“Roots To The Back“ is the result of my experience with the pandemic. – Break, paradigm shift, introspection, time travel, technology and a duo with my singing voice – For better or worse. Now that this shit is over! (Fingers crossed)

Music:
Arranged, performed, recorded, designed and produced by Holger Scheidt
Mixed, mastered and designed by Roni Amir.

Visuals:
Web design by Diego Paonessa
Imagery by Fivos Chatziantoniou
Video recorded and edited by Hannah Fee Kreuzer
Video Audio recorded by Michael Zillmann and Peter Gorzo
Special thanks to Treffpunkt Freizeit in Potsdam

Gefördert von der Beauftragten für Kultur und Medien im Rahmen von NEUSTART KULTUR