Taranczewski
Pianist Olaf Taranczewski has known bassist Jean-Philippe Wadle and drummer Benedikt Stehle for decades, and yet they have never played together in this constellation.

The pianist is the composer and namesake of the band, but as one can easily hear on the debut album When I Was, Taranczewski is a stable triangle whose impulses and playing parts are evenly and - more importantly - equally distributed.

The three musicians are not only connected by making music together in different strands, but also by listening to music together.

These are formative experiences that leave their mark on "When I Was". In fact, they tell each other stories about this listening to music on the album, and the listener enjoys the privilege of being able to listen to these gentle tales.

Olaf Taranczewski
(born 1977 in Hofheim am Taunus) comes from a German-Jewish-Polish family. He studied jazz piano at the Mainz University of Music and Jazz Arrangement at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. He has lived in Berlin since 2006.

He composed music for the cinema and TV films “Mi America” (HBO), “Schweigeminute” (Moovie/ZDF), “Hier und Dort” (MDR), and since 2011 regularly for television programs such as “Frontal 21” and “Satirischer Jahresrückblick” (ZDF), as well as TV documentaries.

For the score of “Dissonance” (directed by Till Nowak) he received the German Film Music Award in the main category “Best Music in Film” in 2015, as well as the award for the best film music in Annecy, France. In 2009 he won the award for the best film music at the Lünen Cinema Festival.

With visual artist Phil Max Schöll (space graphics/scouting), Olaf Taranczewski created the facade projection “Hommage Collage” in Weimar. He also appeared as a composer at the Magdeburg Theater and for the operetta “Turnadot” with the music comedy duo Carrington & Brown. For Oscar winner Volker Bertelmann (Hauschka) he arranged orchestral and string quartet versions for performances in the Elbphilharmonie and the Berlin Konzerthaus.

Since 2017, Olaf Taranczewski has been a professor for producing with a focus on jazz & pop at the Trossingen State University of Music.

Jean-Philippe Wadle
(born 1980 in Pirmasens) won first prize at Jugend jazzt in 1998 and 2001 and studied double bass at the music academies in Mainz and Cologne between 2002 and 2006.

In 2003 he founded the Bassface Swing Trio, which still exists today. Wadle has worked with musicians such as Tom Gaebel, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Lalo Schifrin, HR BigBand, Tony Lakatos, Axel Schlosser, Ralf Hesse, Scott Hamilton, Manfred Schoof, Ack van Rooyen, Hans Dekker, Bruno Müller, Wolfgang Haffner, but also with Katja Ebstein, Marshall-Alexander and Tony Marshall and was part of Emil Mangelsdorff's quartet from 2015 to 2022.

Wadle can be heard on albums by Gee Hye Lee, Daniel Stelter, Andreas Gabalier and Eugene Ruffulo. In addition to numerous concerts in Europe, tours have taken him to the USA and South Korea. Jean-Philippe Wadle lives in Ingelheim am Rhein.

Paul Benedikt Stehle
(born 1984 in Sigmaringen) moved to Berlin at the age of 17 to become a professional musician. After auditions for the Berklee College of Music and the Los Angeles College of Music, Benedikt Stehle received two scholarships and studied in the USA.

After completing his studies, he toured the USA and Indonesia for two years. During this time, he lived and worked in the New York music scene. Among other things, he toured as a permanent drummer with Sammy Adams, a rapper from Boston.

In 2008, Stehle returned to Berlin and worked live, in the studio, and on television, with Beth Hart, Mousse T., Barbara Tucker, Dendemann, Emma Lanford, Eugene Hütz (Gogol Bordello), Della Miles, Steve Lillywhite, Mo’ Blow, The Weather Girls, Aly Keïta, Joachim Deutschland, and Balbina, among others.

In addition to working as a freelance session musician, he is a permanent band member of the pop singer Alexander Knappe and the Romanian Balkan band Fanfare Ciocărlia. With this group, he contributed several songs to Sacha Baron Cohen's internationally successful feature film "Borat Subsequent Moviefilm" (Borat 2) in 2020. Here he can be heard not only as a drummer, but also as the singer of the Balkan version of the classic "Just the two of us" in the film's credits.