Trumpeter, composer and bandleader Mathias Eick (b. 1979) has for a long time been named one of the world’s major jazz talents. With his fourth release on renowned ECM Records he is well on his way to make a home run. While his earlier editions and musicianship have been characterized by a life spent travelling, constantly heading towards new goals and destinations, the album Ravensburg witnesses a mature artist finding his unique and distinguished musical expression. The album is a voyage back home, a reflection on his life situation, with music as an important impetus and his family as a foundation. About Ravensburg he muses: “My inspiration has been my family, my beloved, my little children who never stop to amaze me, and all the emotional situations we experience on the stage where we mostly hang around, that is home”.

Eick has been awarded prestigious prizes, like the International Jazz Festival Organization’s “International Jazz Talent” prize, the Statoil scholarship and the DNBprize. Having finished his education at NTNU Trondheim’s jazz studies, he soon gained success working with artists like Trondheim Jazz Orchestra and Chick Corea, Jaga Jazzist, Iro Haarla, Many Katché, Elvira Nikolaisen and Jacob Young.

In 2008 Eick released his first solo album on ECM, The Door, followed by tours around the world with various constellations and projects. As trumpeter, vibraphonist, double bass player, guitarist or piano player he has performed on far more than 100 recordings. The eminent Ravensburg sextet include two drummers, Torstein Lofthus and Helge Andreas Norbakken, bass player Audun Erlien, piano player Andreas Ulvo and violinist Håkon Aase together with Eick himself. As usual, and in good ECM tradition, the music is produced by Manfred Eicher and recorded by Jan-Erik Kongshaug in Rainbow Studio, Oslo. “On this occasion I wanted to pursue a more melodic and rhythmic tradition and merge with the lyrical, Nordic ECM-aesthetics that I grew up with. My intention has been to bring the music back to Nordic regions and to make it more personal. To portray the strong emotions of life without words.”