Few musicians have such clear evidence of their talent as the 24-year-old harmonica player, pianist and composer Mathias Heise. In addition to the title of Chromatic Harmonica World Champion (2013), the young Danish musician has been honoured with streams of music awards. From "New Jazz Star of the Year" (2015) to "The Crown Prince Couple’s Stardust Award" (2016) and the prestigious "Ben Webster Prize" (2017).
According to Mathias, the album is called “The Beast” because the big band is as powerful as a beast. Having said that, he feels like the big band is a beast that needs to be tamed. But once you've tamed it, it can do incredible things.
The big band format has always fascinated Mathias Heise, even from a purely visual point of view. He remembers looking at the three brass sections when he was younger and associating them with a giant, golden, snarling set of fangs, and when the instruments were all playing together, vibrating in perfect harmony, it was like these golden throats were belching out this amazing, superhuman roar.
That's not to say that the big band has to be all wild and loud necessarily; it can also be played in a really soft, delicate, even sensitive way. But there is a primitive force in this band of independent, powerful instrumentalists that fuse together entrancing contrapuntal movements with 10 to 15 voices weaving in and out around each other in such complex patterns that your brain, with a happy sigh, finally gives up trying to follow along, or they come together in a single voice, roaring in unison, shaking everything and everyone around them.
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