SELECTED REVIEWS

This is supple, intricate, accomplished European contemporary jazz of the highest order (about "After All)
DAN WARBURTON / THE WIRE

The CD "after all" is a pleasing introduction to the best of what contemporary European jazz has to offer these days.
MASSIMO RICCI, TOUCHING EXTREMES / ROME

Oberg is one of the most interesting free pianists of the younger generation. MICHAEL RIETH, FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU

Oberg, a master of pauses and subtlety, is excellent in his feeling for timing and structure... DARMSTÄDTER ECHO

The music suggests a continous flow with a great abundance of sounds - the musicians move in it with passion and intuition (about "Lo")...
JAZZ NOTES / FRANCE

Oberg on the piano surprised with unusual ideas and a Tayloresk intensity...he sounds like Monk as a Free-Jazz player...
BADISCHE NEUE NACHRICHTEN

An extraordinary adventure for the listener (about "Lo")... JAZZPODIUM

Fascinating communication & intensity (about "Lo")... MUSICA JAZZ / ITALY

An extremely intelligent mixture of New Music and Avantgarde-Jazz.(about "Dedicated").. JAZZTHING

A man who allies the lightning-fast technique of Borah Bergman with Sophie Agnel or Sylvie Courvoisiers highly developed inner-piano playing. Beautiful sonorities and acute listening have turned this album into one of 2003's best improv records. (on the CD "Looking" with Xu Fengxia)
FRANCOIS COUTURE, ALL-MUSIC-GUIDE

DAN WARBURTON / THE WIRE, December 2007
Uwe Oberg / After All / KONNEX CD
Recorded in Cologne's Loft in December 2005, After All is the long-awaited (at least where I live) sequel to 1996's fine Leo Lab outing Lo, and once more finds pianist Uwe Oberg in the company of bassist Georg Wolf, drummer Jörg Fischer and, three of the eight tracks, clarinettist extraordinaire Frank Gratkowski.
Like his fellow German free improvising pianist and occasional Gratkowski sparring partner Georg Graewe, Oberg's influences run far and wide, but the traces that remain - the bittersweet harmony of Paul Bley and Ran Blake, the motivic intricacy of Cecil Taylor and Andrew Hill (a fine solo piano to whom can be streamed from Oberg's website, by the way) - have been carefully assimilated into a fluid, often florid style all his own.
He's got the ideal rhythm section to support him too, Fischer's drumming is sensitive and pointillistic without being flashy, and Wolf provides solid harmonic grounding with a full, round tone and a melodic thrust that's dynamic and determined but never brash and aggressive. Gratkowski sitting in is the icing on the cake - Oberg is in his element with another instrument in the mid- and high registers to bounce his musical ideas off, and does so at lightning speed. "Al Dente" is as crisp and tasty as its title implies. But the more introspective trio ballad that precedes it, "Loose All", is no less impressive, as Oberg, Wolf and Fischer tease and fold lines and shapes gently around each other with grace and space to spare. This is supple, intricate, accomplished European contemporary jazz of the highest order.
DAN WARBURTON

MASSIMO RICCI, TOUCHING EXTREMES / ROME
UWE OBERG / GEORG WOLF / JORG FISCHER + FRANK GRATKOWSKI - After all (Konnex)
Uwe Oberg is a talented pianist with a limpid, comprehensible phrasing that puts him at ease in the most different settings. The rhythm section mixes youth and experience, as drummer Fischer and bassist Wolf - two refined instrumentalists with class to spare - have worked both in more "mainstream" situations (including rock) and in company of high calibers such as Cecil Taylor and John Butcher. The trio is helped in three tracks by the inquisitive clarinet of Frank Gratkowski, who adds spice and a whole set of alternative directions to the music. Eight segments (plus a short ghost track) that show a lot: brilliant technique, maturity and an absolute respect of jazz roots are put at the service of a bright-minded improvisation, characterized by a sensitive interplay which exalts the inspired counterpoint generated by these fascinating combinations. We can also enjoy several segments where the single instrumental voices are left alone or barely surrounded by a "presence", like if ancient spirits oversaw the activities of their worshippers while they prepare a ceremony; "Falling" is a good example in that sense. This CD is a pleasing introduction to the best of what contemporary European jazz has to offer these days.

CADENCE, February 2004
UWE OBERG, DEDICATED, JAZZNARTS 1603
Five of the pieces carry dedications to other musicians, and the fact, that the dedicatees - Bley, Feldman, Coltrane, Braxton, Weston - are such a varied lot, gives clues to the intriguing nature of the music. There is a fascinating root system at work in these performances, one that gives an impression of a tremendous depth, and a striking degree of creativity. A distinctly European tree, its bark contains that indefinable, ironic sense found in much german art. Its branche, however, reference both American and European improvised music, gnarling them up in ways that sets this particular quartet apart from the rest of the herd.
The quietly compelling theme of the Braxton tribute opener casts a wide-intervalled theme, typical of his subject, in an unusually warm harmonic environment. This draws the listener in deeply, even more when Oberg's piano spirals around the tense melody in Cecil Taylor-ish pulsations. Saxophonist Schubert, who counts Gunter Hampel, Simon Nabatov and Mark Feldman among his playmates, digs deep in a robust, Chicagoan tenor tradition for this track, and contorts the "After The Rain" theme in true free-Jazzer fashion on this track. Drummer Jörg Fischer has an acute ear for texture, and an easy-rolling approach for rhythm that's reminiscent of the casual brilliance of a Jim Black, or a Paul Lovens.
The Morton Feldman dedication is more late 1960's Art Ensemble Of Chicago than Feldman to these ears, but is well-done nonethless.

THE WIRE / LONDON
Uwe Oberg / Georg Wolf / Jörg Fischer (LEO LAB 030 CD)
Twin reference points for LO are Paul Bley and Cecil Taylor - fitting with the trio's aim to play "pulsating earthy music as well as soar up in spheres of choice fragility", as they say. Uwe Oberg is on piano, Georg Wolf on bass and Jörg Fischer on drums: the trio, based in the Rhein-Main-area, was formed in 1994. The word "Lo" seems to have some Zen significance and all the titles begin with those letters, exept "Valid, Interim 1 and 2" for solo piano. There's a sense of form, and each piece is an individual creation. "Loco" exploits a remarkable range of percussion sonorities, while "Lostloose" comes across like one of Paul Bley's dark ruminations, with what sounds like prepared piano. Two solo piano pieces are limpid pastel shadings. Thoughtful and impressive.