PHILLIP DORNBUSCHS PROJEKTOR
PHILLIP DORNBUSCHS PROJEKTOR
Phillip Dornbuschs Projektor – Revolt
Music can be dangerous for dictatorships. If that were not the case, it would not be repeatedly banned. In democracies, on the other hand, there is artistic freedom, and most people can take advantage of it to express themselves freely.
The saxophonist Phillip Dornbusch and his band Projektor want to draw the audience’s attention to music that was created in moments when people, past and present, have not lived in a democracy, have not lived in freedom. Projektor refers to songs that are not just entertainment or l’art pour l’art, but actually want to topple and put an end to oppression. Protest music. Most of the pieces on the third Projektor album, titled Revolt, are based on songs that were composed in Iran and Estonia and were sung during the uprisings against the Islamic Republic and the Soviet regime.
But even without this connection to protest and struggle, Projektor’s music has a very immediate effect. On their two previous albums „Reflex“ (2021) and „Re|Construct“ (2023), the five musicians were already playing with great natural surety.
Johanna Summer (p), Johannes Mann (g), Roger Kintopf (b) and Philip Adrian Dornbusch (dr) organise themselves around melodies and themes mostly carried by Dornbusch’s saxophone, digressing, then returning again to let another instrument, another idea, another timbre come to the fore. This interaction has reached a new level on Revolt. You can hear it in almost every bar: the communication between the musicians is so intuitive and precisely coordinated that the music can unfold freely whilst retaining the structure of the song.
Dornbusch arranges musical freedom into his compositions. And precisely that plays an important role in protest music. Revolt with an image of solidarity: „Take My Hand“ is based on „Mu Isamaa On Minu Arm“, the Estonian anthem of the
independence movement from the Soviet Union. The title refers to the human chain that on August 23th, 1989 connected around a million people for a distance of over 670 kilometres from Tallinn via Riga to Vilnius. „The Art of Resistance“, „Run“ and „Walk“ can be linked back to „Soroude Koocheh“, a song immensely important in the Iranian „Woman – Life – Freedom“ movement of recent years. The third reference point to revolt is „Baraye Azadi“, probably the most frequently sung song of that movement. It surfaces again in the Projektor piece „Rotten Brains“ and here shows clearly how a western European jazz band relates to past and current protests and revolts. Phillip Dornbusch’s compositions take little more than musical traces from the original pieces: a structure, a rhythm, a melody fragment, and then transform them into new music that stands on its own. These very candid references prevent the kitsch that can occur when the privileged pretend that the struggles are their own.
The difference is always there to be heard in Projektor’s music, even if democracy cannot be taken for granted at home either. „I find the idea of the protest songs so fitting because the democracy and freedom in which we live here, have not for a long time been in such danger as they are now,“ says Phillip Dornbusch. „The idea of the album is also to draw attention to the fact that what we take for granted is and has been hard fought for and is not automatically sustained.“
The music on Revolt is not an appropriation, but a homage to people in the fight against oppression. Projektor’s sound, combining structure and openness – with the connection to freedom-loving revolt present on another level, is distinguished
by its immense vibrancy.
