 Brotherhoods develop from religious, ideological, political or professional motivations. Mike Herting proclaimed the first brotherhood of musicians, but fully free of ideology. In the many years of his activities as pianist, composer, arranger and producer, he has met very different fellow musicians, and a few of them have become increasingly important to him over the years and form a kind of 'inner circle' – and they join together to form a brotherhood in this production. At the same time, Herting is anything but closed-minded and one-dimensional. His multifaceted activities (composer of numerous theater, film and TV music pieces, arranger for the WDR Big Band, hr Big Band, NDR Big Band and Wolfgang Niedecken, among others, producer of hits from Trio Rio to Fritz Brause, music director at DSDS (!), and a few of his own CD projects (including two with Charlie Mariano, among others, at Double Moon Records) demonstrate that he is active in many areas of music even though jazz and improvisation remain the elementary basis. However, people from Cologne are known to be cosmopolitan, and Herting is dedicated to both though and through. His connections to India are known, above all thanks to his long years of friendship with Charlie Mariano and the musicians of the Karnataka College of Percussion. His strong relationship with Africa is less well known, a relationship that has developed thanks to his frequent visits to West Africa. This is all reflected in the band members of the brotherhood. There is the Cologne alto saxophone player Heiner Wiberny, who has played in the WDR Big Band for many years. The guitarist Paul Shigihara, born in Tokyo, also plays in the WDR Big Band. Ramesh Shothamm, percussionist, was born in Madras, and like Herting was also a close friend of the late Charlie Mariano. Then there is Matthias Schriefl (trumpet), who is one of the most successful German jazz musicians with "Shreefpunk" (ACT). As the icing on the cake, there are two guests who create some great highlights: the drummer Paul Kuhns (Willy Ketzer) and "Fesperanto" (as Peter Fessler calls himself). The successful singer did not want to miss the chance to contribute his remarkable voice to two pieces. The idea to provide a basis to "his" brotherhood of musicians with a CD was already born years ago, and Herting has been working since then on a cycle of compositions for this group with different band members. A double CD with 17 pieces resulted. They represent the music cosmos of Herting with different sounds, rhythms, elements of various jazz styles, world music touches from Africa to India, and homage to idols (such as Abdullah Ibrahim and Charlie Mariano). And they were composed for a brotherhood, which meets for a creative dialog in these songs and which interprets the multifaceted harmonic and melodic ideas with improvisation. The inherent skill of the musicians becomes increasingly clear the longer you listen to the music; together, they experience clear joy in playing, desire to experiment, and fun in the groove. None of them is concerned about criticism from the "jazz police". The sole factor of order: a red CD with fast, grooving songs, and a white CD with ballad-like, reflective, romantic compositions.
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