Bass
Look at any catalogue of classic jazz albums, and you’ll start to notice something: many of them feature a lot of the same names in the rhythm sections. It makes sense: if you’re going to run a dozen choruses over a standard, you’ll want the best support you can find behind you.
(Olli Soikkeli, Paulus Schafer, Noah Schäfer – Songe d Automne)
Double bassist Noah Schäfer fits that bill nicely. A driving and musical player who has played with a who’s who of Gypsy jazz greats, especially those of the Dutch school — Koen De Cauter, Fapy Lafertin, The Rosenberg clan — he is most at home in the bass chair in the Paulus Schäfer Trio. As fluent in early swing and the classics of the Great American Songbook as he is in modern standards, Noah’s foundational lines make for an inspiring bedrock at the core of the Trio’s sound.
(Paulus Schäfer Trio & Jacco van Santen – “Cherokee”)
So this year we have something old and something new for bassists at Django in June: our old friend William Brunard and this new one, Mr. Noah Schäfer.