Bop-Explosion: "Simmering", my new album !

[Gheorghe]

Dear friends !

 

I can announce you, that my new album has been released on the very fine label Capricorn Music. 

You can listen to it on Spotify or on Apple Music ! 

 Let me tell you a few words about it.

It´s the result of my musical impressions on last year, a very very turbulent year in my life, with some very sad and bad times and much more wonderful new experiences, and that rollercoaster of emotions triggered my creative forces. 

I augmented my band with the wonderful singer Lili Maljic aka Lili Mae. I had discovered her when she sat in with my band in a second set as a jam session and from the first moment I knew I had found what I was looking for. Meanwhile she is also an established artist and has her own record "The Nearness of You" with the great late Jim Rotondi on trumpet ! 

Each member of my group has his strong position in our music, leading his/her own groups as well as playing with me 😄 

It´s a 7 piece band now with Lili voc, Johannes Probst tp, Márton Papp as, Uli Langthaler b, Dusan Novakov dr, Andi Steirer perc. 

A few words about the originals that I composed: 

The title track "Simmering": That´s the name of the 11th sector of Vienna, not a tourist place that you might visit, it´s strictly working class blocks, but also the Danube River is near. The cover photo has been taken at a certain "lost place" in that sector, near a Bridge where I sometimes sit down and just think. The tune reflects the "sounds" of that place. The bass figure is the noise you can hear when the cars up on the bridge cross the bridge.

"Tune for Pharoah"......it is dedicated to the master musician I like most of them all. Just listen to the lyrics sung by Lili and you know where I am at, what I think and in what I believe.

"Prințesa Andreea Irina” is dedicated to the girls who came into my life in a magic night last year in June. I played a gig and spotted in the audience the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, and just by coincidence we performed "My Ideal". She is the great love that has come into my life, my Princess ! 

"Theme from a Nightmare". I really dreamed that little minor waltz, it was a little toy ballerina in a devasted room who started to play that melody. I woke up, still had the melody in my head and wrote it down ! 

"Miss Ra´s Choice": Miss Ra is the nickname of my girlfriend Andreea Irina. In the course of our second date she stated she does not play but would have loved to have learned to play piano. I told her: You got two beautiful hands, here´s the piano, sit down and play. And believe it or not: What she fingered, made SENSE, it was that little descending figure in A minor, concluding with a bit dissonant chord. It made SENSE ! I didn´t get it out of my head, the next day I made a composition out of it. The little quote of "Concierto de Aranjuez" I play before the horns do the theme, is a nod towards her, because she is half Spanish, half Romanian and was born in Barcelona. Since I am român, of course we speak romanian as our common language. 

"Sir Uli" is a featured for my superb bass player Uli Langthaler. It´s the only bop tune on that album, based on "Wrap Your Troubles in Dreams". 

"The Blonde Girl with the Brown Eyes" is dedicated to my late wife, who was the stunning cover model on the album "Waltz for Serena" that we had recorded one year before. Just about a year before she left that Planet, we did a fashion shopping at some mall in our hometown Brașov, she tried a wonderful dress, made a Pirouette full of joy in front of me and in that moment that melody came into me. I´m glad she heard it, loved it and heard it live with the Band also. It was hard for me to record it, since we were doing the recording session just 2 days after she was incinerated.....

Maybe you wonder why I have a girlfriend since June, when my wife still lived.....well she got mentally ill of Schizofrenia and voices told her to leave me. I couldnt do nothing against it, and maybe that mental illness slowed down her power to live and she just died without having a physical ailment, and it was not suicide....she was like a beautiful sleeping Princess....., I will always love her in another form you know...., Man I cried after we had done that track in the studio, it was actually the first track. They told me "you have to get thru that, you must !" 

The standards are songs that I have loved all my life long and everybody is playing great.

Enjoy it, and please let me know what you think about it.

Musically yours

Gh. 

[HutchFan]

Congratulations, Gheorghe!  

Looking forward to hearing it.  🙂

 

[Dub Modal]

Yeah, will be checking it out. Cheers! 🍻

[mikeweil]

Congrats. Sounds good!

[Brad]

Congratulations Georghe. I hope this year is better for you and I’m looking forward to listening to it. 

[Gheorghe]

On 2/21/2026 at 4:43 PM, Brad said:

Congratulations Georghe. I hope this year is better for you and I’m looking forward to listening to it. 

I wouldn´t say it was a bad year 2025. Serena had schizofrenia and I´m sure that voices had told her to leave me, and maybe always seeing imanginary persons and hearing imaginary voices just exhausted her to an extent that she simply laid down and died..... she was not suffering, she looked like a sleeping angel. 

And in her strange moods she just had told me in march that it´s over, and when I fell in love with Andreea Irina in June, in a lucid moment she smiled at me and said that she´s happy I am in love again. 

I had a big birthday party in december in a jazz club (where else you might find me partying 😄), playing a concert with my band, and after getting the vegane cake I made a short speech where I stated, that whatever had happened, it was the most beautiful year in my life ! 

Sure it was painful, but it is better so, and what should I  wish more: I´m healthy and have the condition of a guy at 30 told the doctors, I have the most beautiful girl in the world, and I create music and already must plan my next album, to fulfill the contractual conditions and to create more music, you never stop, you never look back. The album came out just on Friday and it´s over.....I look what I´ll do next.

But I would love and appreciate it if you all take some time for me, to listen to the album and since you all jazz buffs, please let me know what you think about it. When I play live I appreciated the kind applause, here I might appreciate your feedbacks......