Isabelle Bodenseh: Dignity
GLM Music

Not only a must-have for fans of jazz flute, Dignity is essential listening for fans of flute playing in general. The release arrives ten years after German/French flutist Isabelle Bodenseh formed her quartet and reflects the maturation of the ensemble's playing and her own encompassing vision as a composer, conceptualist, and leader. She's one of those inordinately gifted artists who moves effortlessly between jazz, classical, and folk and fluidly folds them into a genre-transcending hybrid. One additional colour comes strikingly into play when the band's instrumentation comprises flutes, guitar (Johannes Maikranz), drums (Lars Binder), and Hammond organ (Thomas Bauser). In choosing the latter, Bodenseh adds shadings of gospel and soul to her music that would be less present were acoustic piano used in its place.

Compositionally, the album's striking for coupling her five-movement Suite for Dignity with three other originals, one by Binder, another by Bodenseh, and the final one by her and Maikranz. The opening suite and the closing piece, “Juliette,” are rooted in the leader's experiences raising her severely disabled daughter, but the spirit of the material is celebratory and inspirational. The love Bodenseh has for her daughter and the joy she has experienced as her mother resonates vividly throughout the project, from its uplifting music to the family photos that adorn a fold-out poster packaged with the release. Bodenseh's release accomplishes much in helping us view the world and the people within it with different eyes, and how wonderful it is to see Juliette's dignity as a human being affirmed so beautifully.

Recorded in February 2025 at Hansahaus Studios in Bonn, the forty-one-minute release opens with the suite, a remarkable work tailor-made for the concert stage. After an alluring and atmospherically textured “Prolog,” the music springs enticingly to life with the folk dance swing of “Sospeso,” the quartet's playing expressive and enveloping. Bodenseh glides breezily across her partners' responsive foundation until Maikranz steps forth with his own rousing statement. The tightness of the quartet's connection is evident in the ease with which the four collectively raise the intensity of the performance and just as expertly bring it down. The tempo increases for the third part, “Tempesta,” as the band brings the music to a broil. It's Bauser's turn to step forward, and the organist bolsters the music's thrust with a swelling, keyboard-spanning statement. The leader follows with a blistering turn of her own before the focus shifts to the sensitive meditation, “Kantilene,” and a presentation that wends from gentle to bluesy and soulful. Suite for Dignity resolves on a dynamic note with the animated swing of “Verve,” the flavour predominantly jazz with undercurrents of folk, blues, and gospel audible too.

The pieces that follow don't exert quite as much impact as the suite, understandably, but are hardly of minor interest. Binder's rubato-styled “Masha” is one of those peaceful folk-jazz reveries one can never get enough of, and Bodenseh's “Fly High” beguiles with a pied piper-like theme and a driving groove that elicits a scalding, high-flying solo from Maikranz and trade-offs between him and the leader. One final surprise comes in the form of “Juliette,” an intimate collage that weaves bass-flute improvisations and fragments of family recordings into an arresting epilogue. Alongside contemplative musical gestures, we hear Bodenseh reflecting (in multiple languages) on life with her daughter, snippets of her husband's and son's voices, and a few moments of Juliette herself, breathing and laughing.

February 2026