Bloodline – New Release from Guitarist Robert Keßler

Berlin jazz guitarist Robert Keßler presents Bloodline, a modern reflection on a decade of composing, listening, playing and living.

The name of his new release tells it all. That’s to say, Bloodline is not a concept album; it merely follows the artist’s footsteps through a period where being a family man, patient friend, and a musical mentor took priority over any career ambitions. Above photo by Maxim Schultz

The seven songs may be highly personal, but you can almost feel jazz guitarists like Barney Kessel, Jim Hall or Pat Metheny looking over his shoulder, smiling. The lineup is completed with two long-time friends: Andreas Henze on bass and Tobias Backhaus on drums.

“Bloodline” is not a concept album, and yet the CD follows a very clear concept. This concept is called life. Not some imaginary life or life itself, but Robert Keßler’s very personal balance sheet of the last ten years. His role as a family father, patient friend and selfless coach for countless young musicians as well as all the other factors that put his own musical ambitions on the back burner for long stretches. “It wasn’t a matter of just focusing on myself,” Keßler holds. “That’s rather difficult for me. That’s why this record comes ten years after the last one. In the past years, it was not my turn, but that of children, students and other people.” He is a quiet as well as alert observer of his surroundings and also of his own reflection. In the end, we come face to face with a musician with the rare gift of knowing himself. Robert Keßler does not define himself by his conflicts, but is – at least outwardly – a pragmatist of everyday poetry. Amusement and pensiveness are the essential personal ingredients with which he gives his pieces their special flair.  

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