Florian Raepke Big Band - Young And Foolish

Thoughts are free! Florian Raepke titled the last track of his first big band album (The Very Thought Of You) in 2021 with this cry of resistance from the well-known folk song. Thoughts are free also sounded like the promise of further (musical) thoughts from the bandleader, arranger and trumpeter, and his big band. Now this promise has been fulfilled in the most beautiful way: the new album Young and Foolish is dedicated to sung jazz standards as a high art form. Often-heard and interpreted melodies from the great American songbook shine fresher than ever with swinging elegance and a sophisticated groove. These are all love songs; longing, enthusiastic, often tinged with melancholy, especially the atmospheric ballads - before the next moment a groovy soul-blues-jazz opus peeks around the corner: Bobby Gentry's Ode To Billie Joe is played without any solo and adapts the epic mini-feature film as a virtuoso arranged orchestral work. Sometimes it's a laugh that touches my foolish heart (The Way You Look Tonight), sometimes someone makes a fool of themselves in their infatuation and yet knows: But it's fun! (Easy Living). Other times you smile in the sunshine, laugh in the rain and wish that we were young and foolish again (Young and Foolish).