Behind the Skyline Wolfgang Mitschke

• 1 Lady be Good 03:24
• 2 The Jazz Fusion Medley 11:16
• 3 You Never Know 03:10
• 4 There is No Greater Love 02:57
• 5 Jazz Combo 01:52
• 6 In Your Own Sweet Way 03:15
• 7 Pop Ballad 01:55
• 8 Days of Wine and Roses 03:23
• 9 My Romance 03:56
• 10 Behind the Skyline 05:45
• 11 Night and Day 04:50
• 12 Black Orpheus 03:22
• 13 Short Impressions 01:50
• 14 Bayou 02:59
• 15 Orchestral Ballad 02:52
• 16 Upper Manhattan Fusion 03:40
• 17 Midnight Piano 03:22
• 18 Piano Slow 01:31
• Total Runtime 01:05:19

Info for Behind the Skyline

Jazz pianist and drummer Wolfgang Mitschke became known to a wider audience with his jazz albums “NightOver Berlin” (2005) and “Midnight Moods” (2008) released on the jazz label SKIP-Records. He later switched to the internationally renowned NAXOS label and released a new jazz album, “The Berlin Nightbirds”, in the summer of 2020. In addition to very independently presented standards from the Great American Songbook, this album was given a very personal touch with several original compositions. With his jazz album “My Romance”, published by NAXOS in the summer of 2022, Wolfgang Mitschke continued on his chosen path with the active support of tenor saxophonist Jürgen Dietz.

And now another jazz album? Yes, but it should be a bit “vintage” with a view to golden times of jazz history, Wolfgang Mitschke thought to himself as he made his way to the recording studio in his native Rhineland to record music for his new jazz album entitled “Behind theSkyline”. Growing up in the 1970s in Lindau on Lake Constance, his contact with jazz began with his father always bringing him into the living room when there was big band jazz to be seen and heard on television in the big entertainment shows of the time. These were mainly the bands of Kurt Edelhagen (at that time especially in the television program “Varieté-Zauber” 1968/1969 with singer Corry Brokken), then in the 1970s by Paul Kuhn (SFB-Bigband Berlin) and later in the 1980s and 1990s by Horst Jankowski (Rias Tanzorchester Berlin).

Horst Jankowski, in particular, was already regarded as a brilliant jazz pianist in the 1950s, performing with stars such as Caterina Valente, Tony Scott, Benny Goodman, Ella Fitzgerald and Miles Davis. However, he became internationally renowned not as a jazz musician, but as an entertainer. He composed and arranged pieces between jazz, pop and entertainment and performed throughout Europe and the USA, often on non-jazz-oriented TV programs such as “Musik liegt in der Luft” and “Melodien für Millionen”. Horst Jankowski sadly died far too early in 1998 at the age of 62. The album “Jankowskinetik” from 1970, released on the jazz label MPS, and the album “Jankowskyline”, released on the same label in 1971, are representative of many of his jazz albums. Both releases show that Horst Jankowski was indeed a first-class jazz pianist!

These timelessly beautiful recordings were the reason for Wolfgang Mitschke to dedicate his new jazz album to Horst Jankowski with the title track “Behind the Skyline”. This song contains a trilogy with a compilation of different musical moods, in which the actual main part is “hidden” between the introduction and the final part, and hiding something can certainly be interesting information – simply “Behind the Skyline”! The album also contains several short tracks dedicated to Horst Jankowski. To the new CD “Behind the Skyline” the same applies as to the previous albums “The Berlin Nightbirds” and “My Romance”: Wolfgang Mitschke’s piano lines are always charming and light-footed, which makes you want to listen to them. Translation: Axel Cordewener

Wolfgang Mitschke, piano, keyboards, bass, drums, additional keyboard programming, additional guitar programming and additional string programming

Wolfgang Mitschke
Currently residing in Berlin and Bonn, he was born in Lindau (Bavaria) in 1957. Alongside his law studies, he trained as a drummer during the 1970s and established a reputation as a jazz drummer through concerts, club appearances, and radio recordings with various jazz ensembles in southern Germany and North Rhine-Westphalia.

He has performed with artists such as singer and jazz drummer Grady Tate (USA), trumpeter Patrick Rickman (Lionel Hampton Big Band, USA), trumpeter Hans-Peter Salentin, flautist Michael Heupel, guitarist Paul Shigihara, pianists Christoph Adams and Dieter Greifenberg, bassists Martin Gjakonowski and Jens Foltynowicz, and saxophonists Nicolas Simion and Jürgen Dietz, among many others.

Booklet for Behind the Skyline