The founder of the Orchestre National de Jazz Luxembourg, the music professor, trumpeter, conductor, composer and Grammy Award winner Gast Waltzing, composed the songs of the orchestra's new album HOPE. The American singer and composer Maggie Parke, wife of Gast Waltzing, wrote the lyrics. Waltzing became known as the composer of numerous title melodies for television and cinema productions (such as "Die Dunkle Seite des Mondes", "The Point Men" with Christopher Lambert, "Polizeiruf 110" or "K?stenwache" for ARD and ZDF). The project "HOPE" is very close to Gast Waltzing's heart, as it is - after several years in which he mainly worked with and for other international artists - his first personal musical statement, a kind of homage to the golden era of big bands and their divas from Ella Fitzgerald to Nina Simone or Aretha Franklin. "HOPE" is also a very individual homage as it is saturated with Waltzing's wide-ranging influences - Blood, Sweat and Tears, Peter Herbolzheimer's Rhythm Combination & Brass to Duke Ellington. The album's message: to stand up to pessimism. This message is also perfectly portrayed on the record cover, in the manga style of the young Luxembourg artist Sabrina Kaufman: a young woman emerges from the burning ruins of a destroyed world and embodies the new hope. A real discovery on "HOPE" is the singer Salima, whose extraordinary and powerful voice fills the message of the album with soul ("Soul") and stands out with intoxicating scat singing in unison with the brass register. "HOPE" is sophisticated, compact big band music, in which soul, rock, funk, jazz and fusion are equally important and in which jazz quality and commerciality harmonize perfectly. After George Duke, Dee Dee Bridgewater, the Orchestre National de Jazz Luxembourg again collaborates with the Grammy-Award winner Gast Waltzing- First cooperation of the Big Band and Gast Waltzing with the great singer Salima.
