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JOE's MUSIC SHOP - Thank you for listening!

Yours truly, 

HNH 2010 (black cover) featuring Pascal Niggenkemper and Thomas Heberer - This was my first release as a leader and composer on Cleanfeed Records. On our 2011 tour, we played the Port Alegre-Cleanfeed Festival in Portugal and a double bill with HyperActiveKid in Berlin, among others.

POLYLEMMA is HNH extended to a quartet with the addition of bass clarinetist Joachim Badenhorst. The album is released on Red Toucan Records and won Belgian music critic Stef Gijssels' freejazzblog's Happy-New-Ears-Award 2011 for most innovative listening experience.

HNH2 2015 (white cover) featuring Pascal Niggenkemper and Thomas Heberer

Five years later, the follow-up to the first HNH album from 2010: One of Stef Gijssels' 10 albums of the year 2015: "Fantastic trumpet, bass, drums trio redefining the format through inventive music."

> If you would like the physical CD, please write me an email and I send you one: joehertenstein [at] gmx [dot] de

FUTURE DRONE - when my Cologne based piano trio TØRN with Philip Zoubek & Achim Tang played at the MoersFestival in Germany in 2012, when Tang was Improviser in Residence that year, Jon Irabagon played this festival as well with Peter Brendler and Barry Altschul. Jon and I knew each other already from NY and my friend Dietmar Hagen Horn liked his playing a lot and wanted to support me and suggested to produce an album with Jon and myself. I immediately introduced Jon to Achim during the festival and we spontaneously arranged the recording session at LOFT, Cologne, the Monday following the festival, which was a first meeting for Achim and Jon. I brought in two little melodies, everything else was completely improvised in the moment. I sent the ruffs to Ulli Blobel, who signed the album to his label and got Bert Noglik to write the liner notes for it. The incredible artwork is by Jorgo Schaefer. FUTURE DRONE is dedicated to Paul Motian.

TØRN - my Cologne piano trio with Philip Zoubek and Achim Tang released on 2ndFloor/Loft-Cologne Records. Produced by Dietmar Hagen Horn. It was "Recommended New Release" 4/2011 by Laurence Donohue-Greene (Managing Editor of TheNYCJazzRecord). 2011 we performed at the Moers-Festival as a quartet with French clarinetist Joris Ruehl.

My first meeting with AACM-legend, drummer Alvin Fielder at Houston's Sugar Hill Studios. When I was in town for several gigs with Thomas Helton's TheCoreTrio and had an off-day, Damon Smith and Danny Kamins arranged the session spontaneously. 'After Effects', released on FMR-Records, was just announced on the Free Jazz Blog's 2017-Top-10-List by Rick Joines as well as on avantmusicnews.com best-of-2017albums-of-the-year-list:

In August of 2019 the three of us convened at Bob's near Union Square in Manhattan and spontaneously recorded this trio album of two guitars plus table percussion, meaning whatever fit in my back pack that morning. This is very unique music and I think we created some special moods, please dive in! Bob released it on his label muworks, which features mostly Cecil Taylor alumni percussion legends Pheeroan akLaaf and Jackson Krall and I'm elated to find myself in this company. Enjoy!

Interfaces CDs.jpg

"For those bored with free jazz and straight-ahead classicism, Interfaces opens a doorway, through  which it plunges headfirst."    Ken Micallef - Jazztimes 12/2018 

Jeff Morris and I met 2015 as artists in residence at The Atlantic Center for the Arts in Florida, where Karl Berger was the master artist. Together we developed an idea around Jeff's electronic work and spent three September days in Woodstock at Karl's studio and recorded a trio album of vibes & piano, drum kit & stone table percussion, and electronics & sound processing. 

More albums coming soon...please connect via facebook on the top of this page for most current activities. Thank you for listening!

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