Don’t Explain is the second album from guitarist Folker Tettero and his Jazz ensemble at NativeDSD Music.  Following his earlier Jazz tribute album Tettero Plays Eddie Harris and Les McCann (also available at NativeDSD in Stereo DSD 512, DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64 and DXD).

On this album, Tettero and his ensemble explore some of the best-known Pop and Jazz songs of our time.  Including Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds by John Lennon, Make Sure You’re Sure by Stevie Wonder, I Want To Be Happy by Vincent Youmans and Irving Caesar, Softly As In A Morning Sunrise by Oscar Hammerstein II and Sigmund Romberg, Hackensack by Thelonious Monk, Three Views Of A Secret by Jaco Pastorius, Good Bait by Tadd Dameron, Don’t Explain by Billie Holiday and Arthur Hertzog Jr and How Deep Is The Ocean by Irving Berlin.

Don’t Explain is available from NativeDSD in Stereo DSD 512, DSD 256, DSD 128, DSD 64 and DXD. The DSD 512 edition is exclusively available at NativeDSD Music.

Guitarist Folker Tettero tells us “These songs have been part of my life for a long time. Some go back to my early childhood, while others came later as I started to explore my own taste in music. Somehow these songs also came to represent a significant memory of a person or an event in my life.

The Tettero Band goes way back. We played many nights in the legendary Jazz Café Alto at the start of this century: exhausting 5 hour long sets that gave us the opportunity to really play and develop our sound both as individuals and as a group. On those nights we would mix our sets with prearranged music as well as with completely open jams. It could be a drum or bass groove getting the music going or Charlie or I would play a set of changes and we would all jump on it.

Slowly but surely the jam parts started to invade our rehearsed repertoire and we came to realize that by mixing up freedom and structure within an arrangement it was possible to get the best of both worlds. Furthermore, we saw that the Saturday night crowd, which could be hard to please, responded to the new direction the music was taking with enthusiasm. So when the crux of this recording started to take shape in my mind, freedom within structure became the adage. I got hold of the members of the Tettero band, asked Peter Bjørnild to produce and Frans de Rond to record.

Listening to the recording as I am writing these words, I realize that this album is probably the most personal album I have made so far. It is puzzling to me since all the songs are standards and not my own originals. But that’s music, it never ceases to astonish. It has been a most fulfilling experience making this album together with a group of people I really trust on a professional level and furthermore really like a lot on a personal level.

I am very proud of the result and am so very grateful to everyone involved in making this new Tettero album.”

Folker Tettero – Guitars
Charly Zastrau – Piano
Dave Breidenbach – Bass
Klaas van Donkersgoed – Drums