The recording features originally composed music that I wrote largely during the winter vortex of 2013-2014 when many of us across the country were indoors.

..a tuneful, rhythmically sly twist on mainstream jazz... Rutz has a big, dark tone and a fluid ease to his phrasing that makes him seems relaxed even when unleashing a volley of 16th notes...

• J.D. Considine - DownBeat magazine

The album title Second Impression suggests a few ideas. It is my second recording. Also obvious is the allusion to the concept of a so-called "first impression" and the emphasis placed on this in common thought and speech. My belief is that a first impression of a person is no more than a book cover which can not be judged with any true measure of that person, their character or any of the infinite capabilities we all possess. It is rather when actually spending any time with someone that the Second Impression is formed and you "get to know" someone. Without the effort, willingness and patience to go through this process what you have is merely a series of "Blink" moments as described to us by Malcolm Gladwell in his somewhat recent and important work.

With this fifth recording as a leader, Markus Rutz invites listeners to a seat for a live performance from “A Home for Jazz” in the Midwest, Merrimans’ Playhouse in South Bend, Indiana.

Many performances are stellar nights of good feeling and shared experience that exist only in that time and space where others do not have the opportunity to hear the magic. Well You Needn’t fret because the fire and Serenity of the evening was documented on these tracks recorded One Saturday in September at this “Sonic Art Gallery”.

The audience listening to the two sets from the band that night heard a program with tunes penned by Rutz along with standards from the idiom and original arrangements of themes from "Rhapsody in Blue" by George Gershwin. The themes are an extension of Gershwin’s thematic music which have been commissioned by The Rose Theatre with Markus as composer-in-residence.

recorded live September 18, 2021, in South Bend, Indiana