SAMEKA

Bassist Simon Zauels found­ed the band in 2019. In 2021, the band received a grant to help them record their first album of orig­i­nal com­po­si­tions for Mons Records. “Great respect for tra­di­tion and at the same time a high degree of orig­i­nal­i­ty” is what “Jazz in Europe” this debut. As a final­ist in the Future Sounds Con­test, Same­ka per­formed at the Lev­erkusen Jazz Days in the fall of 2022. On July 14, 2023, SAMEKA gave a con­cert at the famous Jaz­zopen Fes­ti­val in Stuttgart. Inter­na­tion­al­ly, the quin­tet went on their first major tour in March 2023, which took them to Tai­wan to share their music with a new audience.

In 2024, SAMEKA released their sec­ond album, MERLINS REISE, on TIME ZONE RECORDS. MERLINS REISE fea­tures SAMEKA with a string quar­tet and the return of OUD play­er Hes­ham Ham­ra. Due to the great response to the Tai­wan debut, anoth­er Tai­wan tour with a string quar­tet based there fol­lowed in March 2024, which in turn led to an invi­ta­tion in 2025. The album itself is described as“Magic of sound fusion­ar­ies” by Peter Michael Bitz and Jazz Fun describes a ”styl­is­tic kalei­do­scope that is sub­ject to the laws of mod­ern jazz fusion and leaves plen­ty of room for impro­vi­sa­tion and very inter­est­ing arrangements…”