"Franz Dannerbauer's MLU is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2000. Since 1979 the composer and bass-player Franz Dannerbauer has constantly worked on his composition with the help of different jazz musicians from several countries.

"Cross in the Darkness" is the fourth album where Franz Dannerbauer presents his ability to create his own style and language in the German jazz scene. Franz Dannerbauer's compositions are pictures, paintings that change and elaborate, he tells stories, he creates emotions.

Franz Dannerbauer's MLU performs usually as a sextet who are all active members of the European jazz scene and show great ability to realise the composer's ideas, although they are technically imposing. Every member of MLU has enough freedom to contribute his personal ideas to the music. Thus the effect is lively, surprising music, that sleeps through the net of established stylistic systems.

I tried to find the origins of Franz Dannerbauer's music, but gave up because I realised that he is simply playing himself. A person located in a part of the world where there is still a tradition, but one that is endangered by a multimedia wave that washes away most unconventional musical ideas. Franz Dannerbauer could be called a classical composer building a bridge to jazz or vice versa. Whenever he heard a famous musician that came to his hometown Munich, he was most impressed when the musician was a special person, an original, a character with presence.

Franz Dannerbauer is consequently living a musicians life, giving lesson and touring exclusively with his own band. His students are taught one thing the most: to develop their own style, to realise their likes, dislikes and preferences, to be themselves. Franz Dannerbauer's MLU is an authentic band and Franz Dannerbauer is one of the most authentic composers I know." (Thanks to Richard Hackental)