I’m All Ears

Mads Mathias’s highly anticipated second album of original jazz songs arranged for small ensemble, big band and strings, is due for release on November 12th on Storyville Records. Since his breakthrough in 2012, leading Nordic jazz vocalist/saxophonist Mads Mathias has received numerous awards and toured clubs and festivals across Europe and Asia, performing at concert halls such as the Royal Albert Hall and Royal Festival Hall in London and the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing. He has also frequently fronted the Danish Radio Big Band. On I’m All Ears, his second album, Mads has gathered together some of the best in the business, from Grammy-nominated big band arranger Peter Jensen and the UK’s leading jazz arranger Guy Barker (London Jazz Festival’s ‘Jazz Voice’) to the leader of the renowned Danish String Quartet – Rune Tonsgård, Brazilian Pandero master Bernardo Aguiar and one of the world’s best harmonica players, Mathias Heise. Alongside these new collaborators are his long-time associate ‘the Quentin Tarantino of Danish jazz’ and playmate since childhood Peter Rosendal (keys), Morten Ankarfeldt (bass), Esben Laub & rising-star James Maddren on drums, plus an incredible horn section. The line-up provides great variety, yet with a forward-looking, original and consistent ‘sound’ throughout. ‘It’s been really exciting to work with these amazing musicians and be able to use different instrumentation to best deliver each song’ Mads comments.

The title ‘I’m All Ears’ references Mads’s intuitive approach to music, having lived part of his life in Tanzania, where his love for beats, rhythm and swing originated. ‘I get inspiration from many kinds of music and it’s most important to me how music makes me feel or move – I hear sounds rather than genres’. The album title invites us to open our ears to different ways of listening, and, beyond music, to open our ears to hear other people and cultures and their stories in an increasingly polarized world. The result of this latest affirmative is a spellbinding collection of nine undeniably swinging originals. Music to your ears.