Graham Collier

Relook: A Memorial 75th Birthday Celebration
Jazz Continuum No #

During an historic career in composed and improvised music that lasted more than 55 years, British bassist/educator Graham Collier (1937-2011) was familiar with, and arguably mastered, every type of jazz as a player and writer. Yet, as demonstrated by the 20 selections of this career retrospective, organized by Collier himself before his unexpected death, his greatest achievements were in the realm of modern, straight-ahead big band Jazz

As the tracks recorded from 1963 to 2004 on this two-CD set illustrate, Collier’s skill was second to none. But qualifiers have to be added about modern, straight-ahead big band Jazz. That`s because the ever-changing, non-atonal music which Collier dedicated his professional life to was increasing being compromised by Jazz’s neo-cons, whose rightful rejection of fads such as fusion and hip-hop, also led to a codification of what they consider “real Jazz”. The bassist’s writings in books and articles strongly argued against these retrogressive blinders and listeners will surely note how his own musical work put a lie to narrow classifications.

Tynemouth-born Collier, who won a down beat scholarship to become the first British graduate of Boston’s Berklee School of Music and in1967, and was awarded the first-ever commission for Jazz from the Arts Council of Great Britain, early on was experimenting with building block arrangements and subtle counterpoint, as a rare Berklee-recorded track here shows. But more important to his future growth were sextet pieces such as “Down Another Road” and “Aberdeen Angus” which allowed a melding of Swing era lilts with churning Rock-styled rhythms without the results sounding sonically schizophrenic. Although there may be a bit of (self) mockery in the pieces which at points have harmonies which lean awfully close to those later used in the Austin Powers soundtrack, the composer has sufficient help fleshing out his concepts from three players who would be his stalwarts for many years to come: trumpeter and flugelhornist Harry Beckett, saxophonist Stan Sulzmann and drummer John Marshall. The last is inventively percussive without being self-indulgent; the reedist at this juncture exhibits a lighter variant on John Coltrane’s style; while Beckett, a veteran even then, offers up sharp-tongued and triplet-laden grace notes, which complement his romanticism in other settings.

“Workpoints”, which resulted for the Arts Council commission is arguably the most notable of pieces on what the set describes as “The Early Collier”. Incredibly enough the highly polished 34½-minute reading it gets here is actually an alternate version not previously released. A low tone man, likely related to his double bass skills, the composer’s exposition contrasts perpendicular vibe echoes and drum drags with a snorting bass ostinato and an overlay of staccato reed tones that open up for narrowed double tonguing from Sulzmann. As the quivering textures move upwards and downwards in pitch and volume, more parallels exist including saxophone call-and-response paired with bongo resonation; plus crying brass and writhing reed bites and slurs from Karl Jenkins’ oboe. Beckett’s flugelhorn textures in many capillary guises drive the middle section, with stop-tongued blurts at the top and the subsequent sequence introduced with notes in the brass instrument’s its highest pitches. Along the way his smooth textures are contrasted with whinnying from the other horns; are part of a two flugelhorn episode of mimicking and melding tones with Kenny Wheeler; and balance the narrative alongside intersecting brass and reed lines in canon-form. Although the swing is rubato, the continuum is paced by Collier’s bass, the percussionists and Jenkins piano comping. Finally – this is early Collier after all – a climax is reached with Mingusian slurs and shudders as well as brass work that evidentially relates to Maynard Ferguson excess. Latterly, a chiming vibe solo by Frank Ricotti maintains the theme’s individuality.

Built around counterpoint between Beckett’s mellow and flighty brass work and the laconic, metallic sound of Ed Speight’s guitar, “Adam” from 1975 is another Collier milestone. This intermezzo was one of the first he composed after being inspired by fine art, in this case the paintings of Barnett Newman, a preoccupation that would last until the end.

Represented by 11 selections from 1976 to 2004, the mature Collier’s composing on disc 2 appears to have paradoxically internalized some of the spaciousness of so-called New music as well as – through some sidemen allusions – heavier Rock, while reconfirming his Jazz roots. Tellingly “Symphony of Scorpions Part 2”, one section of a longer work influenced by the writings of Malcolm Lowry, is characterized by the tension engendered by low-frequency intermingling of piano coloration from Roger Dean, Webb’s, drum flanges and guitar distortions from Speight. The sequence’s momentum is expressed best in soprano saxophonist Art Themen’s pinched line which concludes with upturned vibrations.

At the same time, the extract from “The Hackney Five” from 1994 and 2001’s “Oxford Palms Open Blues and Ballad Two.” present other examples of Collier’s varied mature style. The former connects drum nerve beats, an electric bass intro and some whinnying alto saxophone lines into an undercurrent that leisurely evolves over vamps from the different sections. Meanwhile trombonist High Fraser outputs a chunky, booming solo that is both curvaceous and chromatic. Evoking William Faulkner’s books and location, “Oxford Palms” allows space for various solos to appear from within the gradually accelerating tutti cadenzas. With a modular drum beat, clinking piano runs and marimba chimes, baritone saxophone slurs and yearning alto sax lines make the greatest impression.

Finally there’s what could be termed Collier’s magnum opus, “Hoarded Dreams Part Two: Five Trumpets and a Baritone”. Recorded in 1981 with an all-star cast of British, Continental and North American improvisers, it’s subtitle alone appears both to refer to Ellington’s “Concerto for Cootie” and go him five better in the brass department. Helped along by guitarist John Schröder’s chording and cascading lines from Dean’s piano, as well as some fluttering alto flute from Geoff Warren, the slurs, blasts and brays of the sequential trumpet or flugelhorn solos shift among Ted Curson, Henry Lowther, Manfred Schoof, Tomasz Stańko and Wheeler. Individually expressed, the solos are alternately refined and rasping, revealing capillary cries and harmonies, while the rest of the band vibrates chromatically.

Throughout his life, a good portion of it spent in Jazz education, Collier was enough outside of the fashionable mainstream and away from the American Jazz power centres to have his compositions greeted with accolades that should be have his due. Hopefully this incomparable set of music will redress some of those slights and reveal what ever-evolving improvised music has lost with his demise.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Relook: Disc 1- Down Another Road- the Early Collier: 1. Down Another Road 2. The [Berklee] Barley Mow 3. Crumblin’ Cookie 4. An Alternate Workpoints 5. Song Three Live 6. Mosaics 7. The Alternate Mosaics 8. Adam 9. Aberdeen Angus /// Disc 2- New Conditions - the Mature Collier: 1. New Conditions 2. Forest Path to the Spring 3. Symphony of Scorpions Part 2 4. The Day of the Dead 5. Hoarded Dreams Part Two: Five Trumpets and a Baritone 6. One By One the Cow Goes By Part Two. 7. The Hackney Five Extract 8.The Third Colour Groove 2 9. Oxford Palms Open Blues and Ballad Two 10. The Vonetta Factor 11. An Alternate Aberdeen Angus

Personnel: Relook: Disc 1: 1. Harry Beckett (flugelhorn); Nick Evans (trombone); Stan Sulzmann (alto and tenor saxophones); Karl Jenkins (oboe and piano); Graham Collier (bass) and John Marshall (drums) 2. Dusko Gojkovic (trumpet); Mike Gibbs (trombone); Richard Iannitelli (alto saxophone); Sadao Watanabe (flute); Mike Nock (piano); Gary Burton + 36-piece student big band 3. Beckett; Gibbs; Dave Aaron (alto saxophone and flute); Jenkins; Philip Lee (guitar); Collier and Marshall 4. Beckett; Kenny Wheeler and Henry Lowther (flugelhorn and trumpet); Gibbs, Chris Smith (trombone); John Mumford (trombone and cowbell); Sulzmann; Aaron (soprano, alto and tenor saxophone and flute); John Surman (baritone and soprano saxophones, bass clarinet and piano); Jenkins (baritone and soprano saxophones, oboe, piano); Collier; Marshall and Frank Ricotti (bongos and vibes) 5. Beckett; Derek Wadsworth (trombone); Bob Sydor and Alan Wakeman (soprano and tenor saxophones); John Taylor (piano); Collier and John Webb (drums) 6. Beckett; Sydor; Wakeman; Geoff Castle (piano); Collier and Webb 7. Same as #6 8. Beckett; Wadsworth; Roger Dean (piano); Ed Speight (guitar); Collier and Webb 9. Same as #1 //// Disc 2: 1. Beckett; Lowther and Pete Duncan (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths (trombone); Wakeman (soprano saxophone); Mike Page (alto, soprano and tenor saxophones); Art Themen (soprano and tenor saxophones); Dean; Speight; Collier and Webb and John Mitchell (percussion) 2. Themen (soprano and tenor saxophones) and Speight (acoustic guitar) 3. Beckett; Lowther; Duncan;, Griffith; Themen, Page; Tony Roberts (soprano and tenor saxophones); dean, Collier, Webb; Mitchell 4. Beckett; Griffiths; Page, Themen; Wakeman; Dean; Speight; Roy Babbington (bass); Ashley Brown (drums and percussion); John Carbery (narrator) and Collier (conductor) 5. Lowther; Wheeler; Ted Curson (trumpet); Manfred Schoof and Tomasz Stańko (trumpet and flugelhorn); Griffiths; Eje Thelin and Conny Bauer (trombone); Dave Powell (tuba); Juhani Aaltonen (alto and tenor saxophones); Themen; Surman; Geoff Warren (alto flute and alto saxophone); Matthias Schubert (oboe and tenor saxophone); Dean (keyboard and piano); Speight and John Schröder (guitar); Paul Bridge (bass); Ashley Brown (drums and percussion) 5. Gabriel Garrick, Steve Waterman, Patrick White and Sean Griffith (trumpets); Matthew Colman, David Holt, Hugh Fraser (trombones); Bill Mee (bass trombone); Stephen Main (soprano saxophone); James Scannell, Dan Foster and Matt Stewart (alto saxophones); Matthew Morris (baritone saxophone); Christian Vaughan (piano); Peter James (electric piano); Nick Goetzee (guitar); Jon Noyce (bass); Matthew Skelton (drums) and Tom Hooper and John Machin (percussion) 7. Lowther; White; Waterman; Fraser; Mee; Andy Grappy (tuba); Geoff Warren (alto flute and alto saxophone); Chris Biscoe (alto clarinet and baritone saxophone); Themen; Mark Lockheart (soprano and tenor saxophones); Pete Saberton (piano); Ed Speight; Dudley Phillips (bass); John Marshall (drums) and Collier (director) 8. Simon Finch and Steve Waterman (flugelhorn and trumpet); Ed Sarath (fugelhorn); Fraser; Oren Marshall (tuba); Steve Main (alto, soprano and baritone saxophones); Karlheinz Miklin (alto flute, flute, soprano and tenor saxophones); Geoff Warren (alto flute, alto and soprano saxophones); Themen (soprano, tenor and bass saxophones); Dean; Speight; Andy Cleyndert (bass); Marshall and Collier (director) 9. Adrian Kelly (trumpet); Kieran Hurleyand Jeremy Greig (trombone); Matthew Savage (euphonium and trombone); Lindsay Vickery (soprano saxophone); Graeme Blevins (alto saxophone); Lee Buddle (baritone saxophone); Tom O’Halloran and Grant Windsor (piano); Stephanie Dean and Lucy Fischer (violins); Martin Payne (viola); Jenny Tingley (cello); Phil Waldron (bass); Hans Drieberg (drums and percussion); Steve Richter (percussion and marimba) 10. Beckett; Steve Waterman and Alex Bonney (flugelhorn and trumpet); Mark Bassey and Fayyaz Virji (trombones); Gideon Juckes (tuba); Themen; Biscoe; Warren; James Allsopp (bass clarinet and tenor saxophone); Dean; Speight; Jeff Clyne (bass); Trevor Tomkins (drums); Graham Collier (director) 11. Same as #/10

May 21, 2012

Alexander Von Schlippenbach/Manfred Schoof

Blue Hawk
Jazzwerkstatt JW 119

Jesse Stacken/Kirk Knuffke

Orange Was The Color

Steeplechase SCCD 31717

Participants in these brass-piano duos are at least four decades apart in age and from two different countries, but each configuration has conceived a personal approach to sound al, but in a fashion in this reductionist setting.

Two non-East Coasters transplanted to Brooklyn, pianist Jesse Stacken and cornetist Kirk Knuffke are part of the floating gestalt of the Apple’s young performers. Both have worked with a variety of tyro and veteran musicians including saxophonist Michael Blake, bassist Lisle Ellis and drummer Kenny Wollesen. In 2009 the duo released a CD recasting tunes by Thelonious Monk and Duke Ellington, and Orange Was The Color does the same for 11 Charles Mingus compositions in a balladic configuration.

Born in Magdeburg in 1936 and in Berlin in 1938, respectively, trumpeter Manfred Schoof and pianist Alex von Schlippenbach with seminal bands such as Globe Unity and smaller units helped define European Free Jazz more than 15 years before the births of Stacken or Knuffke,. Over the years, singly and alone, the two have explored a variety of sounds in the company of other improvisers such as British saxophonist Evan Parker. Tellingly, although both are in their seventh decade, they have created a 15-track CD of mostly original material which not only is more formalist than their mid-1960s sound excursions, but could be a low-key counterpart to the contemporary Jazz they were playing before the Free Jazz breakthrough.

In context and comparison to the Stacken/Knuffke CD, Blue Hawk has a recital air about it. This may be a reflection of Schoof’s oft-expressed interest in New music. Certainly throughout, his trumpet tone is usually full, rounded and romantic – with or without capitalization – while von Schlippenbach’s piano styling is, in the main, methodical, moderato and chromatic. Noteworthy is the duo’s treatment of the set’s one standard, Vernon Duke’s “Autumn in New York”. Languidly built around panoramic arpeggios and patterning from the pianist and a flowery theme statement from the brassman, extended with shakes, it’s performed not that differently from the way that, say, trumpeter Clark Terry and pianist Hank Jones would have done it in the early 1960s.

Most of the remainder of the material appears to accept this autumnal conservatism as a given. Although an occasional bravado tongue flutter or squeaky triplet is heard from Schoof, his preferred mode of expressions is muted, physically or orally, either from trumpet or flugelhorn. Meanwhile the pianist’s chording and comping is on the quiescent side, even on his own “Twelve Tone Tales”. Among the few sound barrier-breakers is the adjustment made on von Schlippenbach’s “Adjustment”. Here the piano arpeggios are livelier; the composer’s touch harder and mixed with glissandi, while Schoof chirps as well as expressing himself in longer-lined intervals. Oddly, considering the pianist’s long infatuation with Monk’s oeuvre, the title – and final – tune is taken adagio and lacks most of its composer’s –Monk`s –angularity. Instead von Schlippenbach emphasis blues notes and Schoof expansive rubato.

Moving from a Blue Hawk to an Orange Dress, the American duo’s treatment of Charles Mingus compositions is equally restful, but with none of the hushed serenity that permeates the other disc. It may be that as a volatile character, Mingus’ pieces must reflect his churning intensity. But credit must be given to the two interpreters for creating a disc that while also recital-like and low-key doesn’t sacrifice drama. In a way the two are like a man executing gymnastic dance steps while calmly maintaining a crouching position.

Much of this can be attributed to the arrangements, where after the theme statement, often in unison, the two embark on different interpretations. Freed from comparison with Mingus brassmen, except maybe for Thad Jones who also played cornet and Ted Curson when he played pocket trumpet, Knuffke is free to go his own way, which can include mellow cadenzas as finales or penultimate theme variants; melodic pops and grace notes in unexpected places and triplet exaggerations when necessary. As for Stacken, if there are any echoes of Mingus’ pianists in his playing, they may relate to Horace Parlan and Jaki Byard, both of whom had a tendency to add gospel chording or ragtime-like asides in solos, something Stacken introduces with finesse here. Most of the time however, his playing seems to veer into unhurried rent-party-like expositions, encompassing pedal pressure, straight patterning and unhurried chording.

“Ecclusiastics” for instance is given an appropriately gospelish rendition, which when it threatens to become overbearing is lightened by the cornetist’s melody variant that pushes the pianist towards discursive polyphony. Knuffke’s slurs speed up the title tune with staccato coloration as the pianist adds high-intensity pressure. But the end result is homey as well as lively. Meanwhile “So Long Eric” balances stuttering blue notes from the cornet with regularized comping from the keyboard, following contrapuntal asides from both players, and evolves in perfect harmony. If Stacken’s multi-fingered but cohesively related chords seem to transcend Mingus’ vision – rightly or wrongly – then Knuffke’s citing of a familiar Bebop line keeps the proceedings grounded.

If there is a drawback to the session, it’s a matter of programming. With the limited tone blending available with only two instruments – as opposed to Mingus’ full-band arrangements – more care should have been taken to ensure that tunes of similar tempos were kept farther apart.

Now that Stacken and Knuffke have shown how well they can improvise on other composers’ material in this context, a duo disc of all originals would appear to be in order. As for Blue Hawk, Free Music followers of Von Schlippenbach and Schoof – as well as others – will probably be piqued to hear how they sound in a formalist situation.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Orange: 1. Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love 2. East Coasting 3. Celia 4. Peggy's Blue Skylight 5. Moanin’ 6. Slippers 7. Orange Was The Color of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk 8. So Long Eric 9. Goodbye Pork Pie Hat 10. Ecclusiastics 11. Dizzy Moods

Personnel: Orange: Kirk Knuffke (cornet) and Jesse Stacken (piano)

Track Listing: Blue: 1. Duolog 2. Acht 3. Deforested 4. Twelve Tone Tales 5. Fast Winds 1 6. Adjustment 7. Fast Winds 2 8. Canto Dedicato 9. Pierrot's Morning Exercises 10. Fast Winds 3 11. Still Water 12. Autumn In New York 13. St. Catherine 14. Spread 15. Blue Hawk

Personnel: Blue: Manfred Schoof (trumpet and flugelhorn) and Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano)

October 20, 2011

David Murray

Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club
Jazzwerkstatt JW 073

Peitzer Grand

Mit Vieren

Jazzwerkstatt JW 077

Thirty-odd years make a big difference in the improvised music scene, both in Europe and North America. In fact, one wonders if any of the participants on these two fine live CDs – not to mention the associated audience members – could have imagined the altered musical and political landscape of the future.

In that timeframe, as is proven by many of the tracks on Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, it was the so-called avant-gardists in New York who were celebrating jazz’s past while contemporary players stuck to Bop and Fusion sounds. Meanwhile, as Mit Vieren demonstrates, the gap between East and West Germany was still a formidable chasm. That era’s version of political correctness made it necessary for even advanced German jazz combos to include foreign musicians among the players to ensure no band consisted of only participants from both sides of the Wall.

Luckily the two foreigners participating in this session that took place in the small East German town of Peitz were anything but tokens. Italian multi-reedist Gianluigi Trovesi, future stalwart of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, had already immersed himself in many forms of music from Folkloric to Swing. American bassist Barre Phillips, beginning his long residence in Europe, had already played with Jimmy Giuffre and George Russell. As for the locals, trumpeter Manfred Schoof had been the leader on European Echoes, the first trans-Continental improv disc, more than a decade previously and would continue experimenting as part of the Globe Unity Orchestra. Also, despite his Dresden-base, drummer Günter “Baby” Sommer had already been associated with American trumpeter Leo Smith and Wuppertal bassist Peter Kowald.

This mixed Italian-American-East and West German quartet has been extant for two years at this point and its members comfort with one another is obvious during this 39-minute set. No matter how staccato or multiphonic the exposition gets, there is enough connectivity among the four to keep the narrative chugging along. As each man solos and then steps back into the ensemble it’s obvious that jazz’s traditional strictures are still being adhered to 1981.

Schoof, the most mainstream member of the combo, for example, more-often-than-not carries the melody. Throughout, however, he also introduces interludes of discursive flutter tonguing and spidery brass blats beside his open-horn lyricism. Frequently in contrapuntal sympathy with the trumpeter, usually played forte and presto, Trovesi uses each one of his horn s for different theme variation. On alto his slurps, bites and shrilling meet clattering rim shots and rolls from Sommer. With his bass clarinet, snorting chalumeau riffs, it contrasts with Schoof’s straight-ahead harmonies. Additionally, as his clarinet’s silvery trills alternate between quietude and screams, these sliding glissandi regularly meet Phillips’ scrubbing and stops.

Swaying and stroking his strings with sul ponticello friction, the bassist harmonizes his quivers to processional stretches in order to harmonize with the others. Although Sommer uses un-lathed cymbal rebounds as quirky interruption to the theme, he too honors the track’s creative shape and in the final stretch breaks the time down into smaller units as Trovesi – back on alto – stridently prods Schoof into double counterpoint from the highest reaches of both horns. Backed by timed plucks and thumps from Phillips and flams, drags and pops from Sommer, the conclusion involves swift vibrations from the saxophonist and super fast tremolos from Schoof.

Fewer extended techniques were in use at the 1977’s loft session in Manhattan. Recorded four years earlier than Mit Vieren, Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club also features new compositions, four of which were written by Murray; the other two by his California cohort Butch Morris. Although Murray was also the most recent New Yorker at the time, none of the band members were locals. A once and future member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trumpeter Lester Bowie had previously lived in St. Louis and Chicago. Chicagoans, bassist Fred Hopkins had been part of the co-operative band Air, and drummer Phillip Wilson had played with everyone from Anthony Braxton to the Butterfield Blues Band.

Probably the most characteristic track is the saxophonist’s composition “Bechet’s Bounce”. The performance could fool any Dixielander into thinking it was the product of Classic Jazz. It also confirms that long before the Marsalis’ neo-cons appropriated Jazz history for themselves, so-called avant-garde players were preserving the tradition. Here Hopkins slaps his bass à la Pops Foster, Wilson’s snapping backbeat channel’s Zutty Singleton and Bowie’s open-horned lead is as rough and jungle-like as anything recorded by Rex Stewart or Cootie Williams. All around Bowie’s exciting double-and-triple tonguing, tremolo flourishes and whinnying, Murray weaves high-pitched soprano saxophone vibrations. Performed in broken octaves, the theme is recapped before the turnaround, while the finale involves an old-time rim shot from the drummer.

Also notable is the Morris-composed ode to Walter Norris, the pianist who first recorded with Ornette Coleman, and another musician missing from the official jazz canon. Related to “Lonely Woman”, “For Walter Norris” evolves in double counterpoint as the closely pitched horns modulate atop Hopkins’ adagio bowed bass line. Bowie’s hand-muted solo at mid-point drips with tenderness, until the mood is breached by Murray’s rough-hewn split tones. This jagged-smooth dichotomy is maintained throughout with even Bowie’s smears and growls staying moderato and connective without too much effort. Murray’s agitato and altissimo squeals may be discursive, but they’re usually seconded by Hopkins’ strums and Wilson’s drags and ruffs.

Throughout the CD – initially released as an LP on the India Navigation label – each player bends, extends and distends notes, note clusters and measures. The end result is simultaneously modern and traditional; hard-core jazz and first-class improvised music. Benefiting from more distance and an additional four years of experimentation, the European quartet does the same on its CD.

Both are worth investigating.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. Nevada’s Theme 2. Bechet’s Bounce 3. Obe 4. Let The Music Take You 5. For Walter Norris 6. Santa Barbara & Crenshaw Follies

Personnel: Live: Lester Bowie (trumpet); David Murray (soprano and tenor saxophones); Fred Hopkins (bass) and Phillip Wilson (drums)

Track Listing: Mit: 1. Ein Set

Personnel: Mit: Manfred Schoof (trumpet); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet); Barre Phillips (bass) and Günter “Baby” Sommer (drums)

February 11, 2010

Peitzer Grand

Mit Vieren
Jazzwerkstatt JW 077

David Murray

Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club

Jazzwerkstatt JW 073

Thirty-odd years make a big difference in the improvised music scene, both in Europe and North America. In fact, one wonders if any of the participants on these two fine live CDs – not to mention the associated audience members – could have imagined the altered musical and political landscape of the future.

In that timeframe, as is proven by many of the tracks on Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, it was the so-called avant-gardists in New York who were celebrating jazz’s past while contemporary players stuck to Bop and Fusion sounds. Meanwhile, as Mit Vieren demonstrates, the gap between East and West Germany was still a formidable chasm. That era’s version of political correctness made it necessary for even advanced German jazz combos to include foreign musicians among the players to ensure no band consisted of only participants from both sides of the Wall.

Luckily the two foreigners participating in this session that took place in the small East German town of Peitz were anything but tokens. Italian multi-reedist Gianluigi Trovesi, future stalwart of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, had already immersed himself in many forms of music from Folkloric to Swing. American bassist Barre Phillips, beginning his long residence in Europe, had already played with Jimmy Giuffre and George Russell. As for the locals, trumpeter Manfred Schoof had been the leader on European Echoes, the first trans-Continental improv disc, more than a decade previously and would continue experimenting as part of the Globe Unity Orchestra. Also, despite his Dresden-base, drummer Günter “Baby” Sommer had already been associated with American trumpeter Leo Smith and Wuppertal bassist Peter Kowald.

This mixed Italian-American-East and West German quartet has been extant for two years at this point and its members comfort with one another is obvious during this 39-minute set. No matter how staccato or multiphonic the exposition gets, there is enough connectivity among the four to keep the narrative chugging along. As each man solos and then steps back into the ensemble it’s obvious that jazz’s traditional strictures are still being adhered to 1981.

Schoof, the most mainstream member of the combo, for example, more-often-than-not carries the melody. Throughout, however, he also introduces interludes of discursive flutter tonguing and spidery brass blats beside his open-horn lyricism. Frequently in contrapuntal sympathy with the trumpeter, usually played forte and presto, Trovesi uses each one of his horn s for different theme variation. On alto his slurps, bites and shrilling meet clattering rim shots and rolls from Sommer. With his bass clarinet, snorting chalumeau riffs, it contrasts with Schoof’s straight-ahead harmonies. Additionally, as his clarinet’s silvery trills alternate between quietude and screams, these sliding glissandi regularly meet Phillips’ scrubbing and stops.

Swaying and stroking his strings with sul ponticello friction, the bassist harmonizes his quivers to processional stretches in order to harmonize with the others. Although Sommer uses un-lathed cymbal rebounds as quirky interruption to the theme, he too honors the track’s creative shape and in the final stretch breaks the time down into smaller units as Trovesi – back on alto – stridently prods Schoof into double counterpoint from the highest reaches of both horns. Backed by timed plucks and thumps from Phillips and flams, drags and pops from Sommer, the conclusion involves swift vibrations from the saxophonist and super fast tremolos from Schoof.

Fewer extended techniques were in use at the 1977’s loft session in Manhattan. Recorded four years earlier than Mit Vieren, Live at the Lower Manhattan Ocean Club also features new compositions, four of which were written by Murray; the other two by his California cohort Butch Morris. Although Murray was also the most recent New Yorker at the time, none of the band members were locals. A once and future member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago, trumpeter Lester Bowie had previously lived in St. Louis and Chicago. Chicagoans, bassist Fred Hopkins had been part of the co-operative band Air, and drummer Phillip Wilson had played with everyone from Anthony Braxton to the Butterfield Blues Band.

Probably the most characteristic track is the saxophonist’s composition “Bechet’s Bounce”. The performance could fool any Dixielander into thinking it was the product of Classic Jazz. It also confirms that long before the Marsalis’ neo-cons appropriated Jazz history for themselves, so-called avant-garde players were preserving the tradition. Here Hopkins slaps his bass à la Pops Foster, Wilson’s snapping backbeat channel’s Zutty Singleton and Bowie’s open-horned lead is as rough and jungle-like as anything recorded by Rex Stewart or Cootie Williams. All around Bowie’s exciting double-and-triple tonguing, tremolo flourishes and whinnying, Murray weaves high-pitched soprano saxophone vibrations. Performed in broken octaves, the theme is recapped before the turnaround, while the finale involves an old-time rim shot from the drummer.

Also notable is the Morris-composed ode to Walter Norris, the pianist who first recorded with Ornette Coleman, and another musician missing from the official jazz canon. Related to “Lonely Woman”, “For Walter Norris” evolves in double counterpoint as the closely pitched horns modulate atop Hopkins’ adagio bowed bass line. Bowie’s hand-muted solo at mid-point drips with tenderness, until the mood is breached by Murray’s rough-hewn split tones. This jagged-smooth dichotomy is maintained throughout with even Bowie’s smears and growls staying moderato and connective without too much effort. Murray’s agitato and altissimo squeals may be discursive, but they’re usually seconded by Hopkins’ strums and Wilson’s drags and ruffs.

Throughout the CD – initially released as an LP on the India Navigation label – each player bends, extends and distends notes, note clusters and measures. The end result is simultaneously modern and traditional; hard-core jazz and first-class improvised music. Benefiting from more distance and an additional four years of experimentation, the European quartet does the same on its CD.

Both are worth investigating.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Live: 1. Nevada’s Theme 2. Bechet’s Bounce 3. Obe 4. Let The Music Take You 5. For Walter Norris 6. Santa Barbara & Crenshaw Follies

Personnel: Live: Lester Bowie (trumpet); David Murray (soprano and tenor saxophones); Fred Hopkins (bass) and Phillip Wilson (drums)

Track Listing: Mit: 1. Ein Set

Personnel: Mit: Manfred Schoof (trumpet); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, clarinet and bass clarinet); Barre Phillips (bass) and Günter “Baby” Sommer (drums)

February 11, 2010

Schoof/Schriefl/Bauer/Reichel/Völker/Schmdtke/Raymond/Weiss

Heimat Lieder
Jazzwerkstatt 030

Unflinchingly and cheekily adopting a collection of German “regional songs” and a couple of unexpected additions as a soundtrack, the members of Heimat Lieder boldly articulate an alternate narrative for Teutonic Euro Improv.

At the same time while this collection of uncomplicated waltzes, beer-hall ditties, bellicose marches and half-remembered folk songs demonstrates that brass band literature and rural ballads shaped Germany’s free players as much as overseas influences, the CD is also memorable because the playing isn’t doctrinaire in any way. Rather than aim for musical verisimilitude, the players operate in a climate of gentle parody, expanding the quirkiness of these “home songs”, while emphasizing their connection to the shifting world of free improvisation.

Evidence for this is provided by Hans Reichel whose unique bowed and strummed daxophon ejaculations alternately growl or warble in places where a vocalist sporting a Tyrolean-hat and lederhosen would be featured. Adding to the air of imaginary folklore are the portamento runs and bellow-pumping of accordionist Ute Völker, usually found in the company of experimenters such as violinist Gunda Gottschalk and bassist Peter Jacquemyn. Additionally, two other participants – trumpeter Manfred Schoof and trombonist Conrad Bauer – are old enough to recall German jazz’s pre-history in the west (Schoof) and the east (Bauer) and were among the then-divided country’s first free improvisers.

Spelling Schoof on half the tracks in the lead trumpet role, with showy triplets and half-valve effects, is a player who shares his initials but is almost a half-century younger. Köln-based Matthias Schriefl, who works with groups as different as Shreefpunk and the European Jazz Ensemble, likely wasn’t born when the CD’s tunes were seriously performed in their original form, but he acquits himself admirably here; as does steady-toned bassist Christian Raymond.

However the project’s chief instigators are journeyman players, neither tyros nor first generation experimenters. Tenor saxophonist and bass clarinetist Wolfgang Schmidtke, who teaches music in Köln, has worked with players as different as rock drummer Ginger Baker and jazz bassist John Lindberg; while drummer Peter Weiss co-leads groups with Wolfgang Engstfeld and has gigged with players as disparate as avant-gardists, bassists Peter Kowald and trumpeter Itaru Oki and mainstream American saxophonists Hal Singer and James Moody,

The last two might be a little bewildered by much of the CD’s material, but would certainly have perked up as the seven transform the Bonanza TV show theme into a buffo version of omph-pah-pah music. Introduced by contrapuntal accordion slides and bass clarinet undulations, Schriefl is soon clambering up the scale with double-tongued grace notes as cymbals slap along with a shuffle rhythm from the drums and the accordion interjects polyphonic tones. As the trumpet blasts get progressively more piercing Reichel’s daxophon whinnies in response.

Humor is a little less broad elsewhere, though obvious enough to confirm that the majority of times the massed horns go off-key is deliberate. This approach does mean that warhorses such as “Alte Kamraden” and “Land Der Dunklen Wälder” are rejuvenated however.

The later contrasts smooth tenor saxophone lines which lean towards 1950s pop-jazz with double-timed warbling daxophon riff and portamento accordion pumps that suggest a sing-along. While Völker’s bulging key sluices create a pulse that could encourage groups of Oktoberfest drunks to sway down the street, Schoof begins trumpeting what could be “It’s Now or Never” in an exaggerated rendition filled with blustery grace notes, sliding tremolo and vibrated asides. Following pig-squealing and bird-whistling from Reichel’s instrument, the piece wraps up with marching pulses from trombone and accordion.

Weiss comes to the fore on “Alte Kamraden”, as his drags, rolls and ratamacues enliven the standard rhythmic line. Aided by Raymond’s walking bass, he still prevents the hoary melody from being submerged, as the trumpeter pops out spittle-encrusted notes while Bauer unleashes long-lined growls and chromatic, gutbucket slurs. Barely staggering to the finale with fanfares and quacks, a coda showcases the brass lugubriously tonguing a smarmy version of the theme.

It isn’t clear for how long this band of “old comrades” has worked together, but on evidence of their stirring and amusing work here, the sequel threatened by Schmidtke in the booklet notes, should be encouraged.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. So Ein Tag 2. Alte Kamraden 3. Land Der Dunklen Wälder 4. Hänschen Klein 5. Der Mond Ist Aufgegangen 6. Bonanza 7. In Einen Küchlen Grunde 8. Dallas 9. So Ein Tag (Reprise)

Personnel: Manfred Schoof* or Matthias Schriefl** (trumpet); Conrad Bauer (trombone); Wolfgang Schmidtke (tenor saxophone and bass clarinet); Hans Reichel (daxophon); Ute Völker (accordion); Christian Raymond (bass) and Peter Weiss (drums)

January 22, 2009

Alexander Von Schlippenbach-Globe Unity Orchestra

Globe Unity - 40 Years
Intakt CD 133

Schlippenbach Trio

Gold Is Where You Find It

Intakt CD 143

More than 70 years old, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach is one more proof of Steve Lacy’s adage that “free jazz keeps you young”. A professional musician since 1962, Berlin-based Schlippenbach has maintained his level of creativity in various contexts, most prominently in the trans-European Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO) and his trio with saxophonist Evan Parker and drummer Paul Lovens.

Consistency may be another attribute of quality as well as metaphoric youthfulness, since these CDs – one celebrating the GUO’s 40th birthday and the other recorded in the year of the Schlippenbach Trio (ST)’s 35th anniversary – confirm that the pianist and his associates are still on top of their game(s).

Taking them one by one, death and disagreements have taken their toll on the GUO’s personnel, but the 15-piece aggregation – sans bass player like the ST – holds to the high standards set by its predecessors. Mixing older compositions with newer pieces, such as the pianist-composed title track, solo space is given to every band member, who range from GU veterans such as trumpeter Kenny Wheeler and multi-reedist Gerd Dudek to newbies such as American trombonist Jeb Bishop and French trumpeter/flugelhornist Jean-Luc Capozzo.

Some of tracks are practically bagatelles, with the real meat in the more lengthy explorations. Still there is period charm in the rhythmic punctuation, complete with screaming high-note trumpet lines – likely from Capozzo – that enliven “Bavarian Calypso”’s cacophonous polyphony. Plus “Nodago”, a reflective showcase for Wheeler, who composed it, proves that the old Woody Herman-Stan Kenton-style big band backing can be legit. Nonetheless, the late British trombonist Paul Rutherford manages to counter nostalgia here with a burbling multiphonic solo that contrasts contralto and basso tones.

A close cousin to the calypso is Steve Lacy’s “The Dumps”. Thelonious Monk-like in its interpretation it features oomph-pah-pah brass, slithering reed timbres and high-frequency rolling chording from Schlippenbach. Here Dudek expels a continuously breathed circular soprano saxophone solo with more grit than Parker brings to similar outputs. Bishop’s slippery slide positions and tongued pressure layer the backing along with Capozzo’s mouse squeaks and behind-the-beat grace notes, which are given further impetus by Lovens’ cymbal spanks and rim shots. In contrast, Dörner’s concluding knitted capillary tones appear to leech sound as much from metal stress and throat scraping as from what is pushed through the bell.

Another showcase, Wilem Breuker’s “Out of Burtons Songbooks”, from 1973, makes obvious the GU’s early style-spanning. The processional piano introduction could have been lifted from a chamber recital, while Schlippenbach’s subsequent exchanges with Dudek outline the sort of interdependent dissonance that seems a lot closer to Joe Henderson’s and Herbie Hancock’s work for Blue Note, then contemporary European experimentation. In-the-moment interface is thus left to Bishop and bass clarinetist Rudi Mahall’s whack-a-mole-like duet, where smears, vibratos and trills in all registers are immediately answered and intensified.

Still the GU’s 21st Century identity is made clearest on the pianist’s title composition. Fabricating the piece from drum pops, brass plunger tones, slurred reed chirps, zig-zag trumpeting and irregular triplets from the piano, serendipitously its resolution involves members of the ST. Schlippenbach is appropriately staccato and cross-handed in his playing; Lovens wallops cracks, drags and crashes his percussion; while Parker unleashes hummingbird-swift sliding, slurping and triple tonguing. Trombonist George Lewis’ side-to-side slurs and doubled tongue flutters extend the line still further.

Gold Is Where You Find It’s title tune provides an equivalently definitive description of the 21st Century ST. Coupled with the subsequent “K. SP”, it exposes the trio strategy of tick-tock wooden drags and positioned licks plus cymbal pops from Lovens; echoing strummed piano chords plus bowed, twanged and stopped prepared piano strings from Schlippenbach; and squeezed irregular note clusters and unstated squeaks and breaths form Parker.

Like the GU, the trio improvisations obliquely refer to antecedents as well as the future. For instance, there’s a section on “Three in One”, when Schlippenbach’s key-clipping is so obviously Monk-like – the American pianist is an admitted influence – that Parker’s continuously uncoiling chirps and split-tone asides start to resemble the tenor saxophone styling of Johnny Griffin. Meanwhile the pianist circles through a variety of chord and cluster coloration as cascading high-energy feints and fills share space with wriggling note clusters and off-handed patterns.

“Cloudburst” – not the Lambert-Hendricks & Ross vocal showcase – in instead a moody nocturne where circumspect tenor saxophone timbres meet rebounds, pops and temperate cymbal lacerations, with the tune accelerating in andante increments, until it climaxes in kinetic cadenzas from Schlippenbach as well as tough saxophone cadences from Parker.

Finally there’s “Z.D.W.A.”, the impressive group improvisation that begins this recital. Balanced on Lovens’ distinctive locution of rolls and rebounds plus irregular cymbal shattering, the pianist expresses himself in different styles and tempos. Moving from dreamy romanticism to rolling stride in his solos, bass pedal pressure and chord clusters gradually give way to playful double-timing. Similarly Parker’s tongue-slapping and tone-scraping attain his characteristic line-and-pattern extensions before downshifting with the others to cumulative silence.

Extrapolating Parker’s composition title “Three in One”, the Schlippenbach Trio has maintained its power over many years by sympathetically amalgamating each other’s skills. What’s more, even with a constantly shifting cast, the Globe Unity has performed a similar task. Perhaps then it’s this organizational flair, along with his choice of compositions, and situations that welcome new ideas, which accounts for the pianist’s musical youthfulness.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Globe: 1. Globe Unity forty years 2. Out of Burtons Songbooks 3.Bavarian Calypso 4. Nodago 5. The Dumps 6. The Forge

Personnel: Globe: Axel Dörner (trumpet); Jean-Luc Capozzo, Manfred Schoof and Kenny Wheeler (trumpet and flugelhorn); George Lewis, Paul Rutherford, Johannes Bauer and Jeb Bishop (trombone); Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky (clarinet, alto saxophone and flute); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Gerd Dudek (soprano and tenor saxophones, clarinet and flute); Rudi Mahall (bass clarinet); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano) and Paul Lovens and Paul Lytton (drums).

Track Listing: Gold: 1. Z.D.W.A. 2. Slightly Flapping 3. Amorpha 4.Gold is Where you Find it 5. K. SP 6. Monkey’s Fist 7. Lekko 8.Cloudburst 9. Three in One 10. The Bells of St. K.

Personnel: Gold: Evan Parker (tenor saxophone); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano) and Paul Lovens (drums).

November 25, 2008

GIANLUIGI TROVESI OTTETTO

Fugace
ECM 1827

GLOBE UNITY ORCHESTRA
Globe Unity 2002
Intakt CD 086

One potential horror comedians are always joking about is a world where the transportation schedules would be set by the Italians and the restaurants run by the British and Germans.

As humorous as this may sound as a situation, these CDs by mid-sized (eight- and nine-piece) bands shows that remarkable sounds can still result if countrymen act antithetically to their clichéd national characteristics.

FUGACE finds eight legendarily anarchistic Italians settling down for 16 short, arranged improvisations that touch on a variety of genres. Conversely, GLOBE UNITY 2002 features nine supposedly restrained Britons and Germans creating almost 74 minutes of some of the most cacophonous hullabaloo since John Coltrane and 10 other improvisers recorded ASCENSION in 1965.

As a matter of fact, Globe Unity, (the band) has always been in the tradition of all-out passionate expression that characterized 1960s aggregations like the Jazz Composers Orchestra, with the added fillip of being international. Over the years since the band’s first LP in 1966, membership has swollen to a high of 19, with American, Italian, Dutch and Polish musicians included, until it officially disbanded in 1986.

This one-time, live concert reunion 15 years later finds most of the longtime Globers on hand and confirms that the spirit and excitement the band engendered in its lifetime still exists. As well, 30 years on, a serene quantity has crept into some of the playing.

Leader Alexander von Schlippenbach, for instance, may begin the proceedings with intense, emotional, Romantic arpeggios, but during the course of the one long piece here he’ll relax into almost conventional jazz club comping and fills. Then when it comes time for his extended solo, his playing seems more bop-like and connected than the style of his first influence, Thelonious Monk. He uses careful voicing and portamento to glide across the keyboard. Building up tension in the Free Jazz sense with serpentine chords and echoing vibrations, his swiftness can resemble that of a player piano. Yet his unaccompanied coda is near pastoral, well modulated and definitely two-handed.

Trumpeter and, flugelhornist Manfred Schoof, who started off as a German version of a so-called Progressive jazzman, reverts to form in his solo spots. At one point he reveals long-lined patterned and focused grace notes that evolve to note-perfect brassy triplets, at another builds up mellow flugelhorn filigree, which when combined with the backing orchestral figures recall MILES AHEAD.

Others have intensified the way they first played 30 years ago. Evan Parker offers a five-minute plus exhibition of louder and softer circular breathing from his soprano sax, that appears to have an unmistakable bagpipe echo. Meantime fellow Briton, trombonist Paul Rutherford, growls and mumbles and rants within his trombone bell, with his snorts and Bronx cheers finally calling forth dampening metallic rim shot action and cymbal crashes from the dual percussionists. His direct musical descendent, German trombonist Johannes Bauer, also exhibits some double-tongued slurs backed with only piano accompaniment.

Dissonance, in all its ear-wrenching glory still inhabits the playing of the two remaining horn men though: Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky on alto saxophone, clarinet and flute and Peter Brötzmann on tenor saxophone, tarogato and clarinet. One reedist -- though likely not Parker -- ejaculates some split-tone altissimo squeaks near the beginning of the extended piece, the likes of which haven’t been heard since the heyday of Giuseppi Logan. Much later, peeping tarogato timbres meet up with woody bass clarinet tones, arching from dog-whistle to bird trilling territory.

Then there’s a point just past midway where the “Ascension”-style total band hubbub slackens to expose a protracted series of screeches and multiphonic blasts from the tenormen. The yells and applause from the audience makes it appear that for it, this was the highpoint equivalent of Paul Gonsalves’ protracted solo on Duke Ellington’s “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blues” at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.

As all this is going on, the proper tempo for clangorous explosions and feather light interludes is provided by the Pauline duo on percussion -- England’s Paul Lytton and Germany’s Paul Lovens.

Trovesi’s Ottetto features two drummers as well, but that’s about the only symmetry between the two sessions. Old enough -- he was born in 1944 near Bergamo -- to be part of the Globe Unity generation, multi-reedist Trovesi mixed his jazz with studio work earlier in his career. Part of the first generation of Southern European musicians to assert themselves internationally, Trovesi is known for his folklore-tinged work with trumpeter Pino Minafra, and membership in the all-star Italian Instabile Orchestra, which also includes ex-Globe Unity trumpeter Enrico Rava.

Like his other octet sessions though, FUGACE resides in a space of its own, where traditional Italian operatic drama coexists with improvisation, and where the references include veteran local comic Totò as well as Louis Armstrong. Thus on the three-part “Totò nei Caraibi”, as the pizzicato plucking of the three string players suggests a cartoon cat sneaking across the horizon, other sounds form the band reference a funeral march and echo calypsos.

In the same way, “Ramble” begins with a note-perfect Dixieland emulation with the drummers exercising their kits with ratamacues and a clip-clop rhythm like duple Baby Dodds, as Trovesi on clarinet makes like Baby’s older brother -- and Armstrong associate -- Johnny. But trumpeter Massimo Greco reaches for augmented notes too modern for Satchmo, the clarinet is soon trilling in a modernistic folk style reminiscent of Jimmy Giuffre, and you’d never hear Marco Remondini’s arco cello slices anywhere in Trad Jazz. Blasts from trombonist Beppe Caruso, who leads his own fine brass band, form a countermelody that doubles and triples the tempo until the end.

In contrast to the Globe Unity veterans, the reedist’s is a younger band, made up in the main of musicians who have played with him for about a decade. With Remondini and percussionist Fluvio Maras adding electronics to the mix the Trovesi Eight proffers some unique textures, including a series of linking interludes that sound as if they were created on an electrified harpsichord that snuck in from a Yardbirds session. Thus while Trovesi may sometimes echo Benny Goodman and the unison string section get a bit overwrought in the 1,001 strings tradition, plenty of other slants arise as well.

“Blues and West” for instance, starts off with enough reverb from the electronica and electric bass slaps plus monochromic drumming to make it sound like a rock band has invaded the studio. In between riffing horns, Trovesi on alto creates some cosmic bop-inflected squeals and Greco plays a soaring, slurred trumpet line. “Canto di lavoro” goes in the opposite direction. It starts off with an Armstrong-like trumpet cadenza, introduces chalumeau clarinet trills and finishes with a sound that ping-pongs from outer-space whistles from the electronics, and someone, somehow -- perhaps the top strings of the electric bass -- producing a quivering Jimi Hendrix-like electric guitar distortion.

Massed horn riffs often appear to be half banda and half James Brown’s horn section, Trovesi’s split tone can often take on a distinctive Arabic inflection and the dual backbeat, if from hand drums, can be as much Savannah as Sardinia.

Improvised music has become such an all-encompassing category that a group can perform in a variety of ways to produce outstanding music, despite national clichés. Globe Unity and the Ottetto demonstrate two excellent versions of these methods.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Fugace: 1. As strange as a ballad 2. Sogno d’Orfeo African Triptych: 3. Wide Lake 4. Scarlet Dunes 5. Western Dream 6. Canto di lavoro 7. Clumsy dancing of the fat bird 8. Siparietto I 9. Blues and West 10. Siparietto II 11. Il Domatore 12. Ramble 13. Siparietto III 14. Fugace 15. Siparietto IV 16. Totò nei Caraibi

Personnel: Fugace: Massimo Greco (trumpet, electronics); Beppe Caruso (trombone); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, piccolo, alto clarinets); Marco Remondini (cello, electronic); Roberto Bonati (bass); Marco Micheli (bass, electric bass); Fluvio Maras (percussion, electronics); Vittorio Marinoni (drums)

Track Listing: Globe: 1. Globe Unity 2002

Personnel: Globe: Manfred Schoof (trumpet, flugelhorn); Paul Rutherford and Johannes Bauer (trombones); Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky (alto saxophone, clarinet, flute); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, tarogato, clarinet); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano); Paul Lovens and Paul Lytton (drums)

December 1, 2003

MANFRED SCHOOF

European Echoes
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 232CD

ALEXANDER VON SCHLIPPENBACH
The Living Music
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 231CD

Multi-reedman Peter Brötzmann always insists that when pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and trumpeter Manfred Schoof first heard his pioneering free jazz band in the mid-1960s “they just laughed their asses off. At that time they played the Horace Silver-style thing”. But, by the end of the decade as Brötzmann widened his circle to include other experimenters like Dutch drummer Han Bennink and worked with American jazzers like trumpeter Don Cherry and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, his fellow Germans began to come around as well.

They began to come around to such an extent that by 1969 Schlippenbach and Schoof were recording the outside session showcased on these discs, both of which featured international casts, definitely including Brötzmann and Bennink. Since that time the pianist has maintained his free jazz affiliation, most notably in a long-running trio with British saxophonist Evan Parker, who is also on EUROPEAN ECHOES. The trumpeter, on the other hand, sticks more to a mainstream style, when he isn’t writing and playing contemporary classical music.

Recorded first THE LIVING MUSIC was an indirect nod to Julian Beck’s experimental Living Theater group that had recently set up shop in Europe. It was also a smaller-sized version of Schlippenbach’s on-again-off-again-massive Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO), with British trombonist Paul Rutherford and Bennink joining the five Germans players.

In a way it’s those two, as well as Brötzmann, who are most impressive on this session. The trombonist who had already worked with London’s Spontaneous Music Ensemble and GUO and would go on to play throughout Europe, is credited with the invention of trombone multiphonics. Here his avant-gutbucket tone intertwines among the other instruments, stylistically neighing in his way like Tricky Sam Nanton did with Duke Ellington’s band. Using what sound like a regular kit expanded with a marimba, a thumb piano, a massive Oriental gong and who knows what else, Bennink has more percussion on hand than Ellington’s flashy Sony Greer ever had.

Like Greer, he uses it judiciously, however, smashing, banging and thumping enough to bring the discordant darker toned instruments together. At times, though, when the pianist attacks the keyboard with particular ferocity, Bennink become even more bellicose, becoming Sunny Murray to Schlippenbach’s Cecil Taylor.

However, since he began playing professionally almost at the same time as CT, Schlippenbach is more a Thelonious Monk man. As a matter of fact, his introductory solo on “Tower” has a pianistic conception that’s definitely Monk-like. Furthermore, despite Brötz’s overblowing -- no Charlie Rouse he -- and Bennink’s relentless pounding, the pianist’s nearly 11½-minute composition sounds like one of the tunes recorded by those mid-sized Monk ensembles.

Schlippenbach’s cadences and arpeggios are less adventurous elsewhere, especially when Schoof, on cornet, takes the lead. Influenced at that time as much by Ted Curson and other freeboppers as Cherry, the brassman’s “Wave” suggests The Jazz Messengers playing Ornette Coleman. Vying with swinging, foreground percussion, Schoof’s solo is all flourishes, fanfares and note building, facing counterpoint from the saxophone section and Rutherford’s smeared lines. Elsewhere, the British brassman combines with Bennink for exercises in free march time and otherwise -- perhaps aided by Niebergall’s little-heard bass trombone -- stacks up against the buzzing saxophones and relentless percussion with elongated tones that sometimes sound like the braying of animals.

Throughout, Brötzmann is a holy terror, pumping out notes as if from a machine gun and asserting himself more than anyone else. On one occasion he explodes into a cappella multiphonics, then works his way down his horn, tossing out variations on the theme as he goes along. Although as part of the Schoof Quintet and later on with his own band and work with Lacy, Luxembourg-resident Michel Pilz would be quite well known, he’s oddly reticent here. Only on the cornettist’s Stan-Kenton-meets-Don-Cherry arrangement of “Past Time” do his tart clarinet tone make any impression.

On the other hand, nearly every one of the 16 musicians present gets some solo space on EUROPEAN ECHOES, another of Atavistic’s FMP Archive Edition, recorded two months after Schlippenbach’s CD under Schoof nominal leadership.

It seems nominal because a soon a the fist drum beats echo through the studio, by means of the dual percussion of Bennink and Swiss drummer Pierre Favre, it’s obvious that this almost 32-minute composition is going to be some wild ride. Appropriately named, the disc features all the player on the first CD save Pilz plus Parker and German tenorist Gerd Dudek on saxophones; Italian Enrico Rava and Dane Hugh Steinmetz on trumpets; Fred Van Hove from Belgium and Irène Schweizer from Switzerland on pianos; British guitarist Derek Bailey and bassists Peter Kowald from Germany and Arjen Gorter from Holland.

With the examples of controlled chaos that other large ensembles like New York’s The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, GUO and Brötzmann’s “Machine-Gun” band already created, this disc is most valuable providing aural views of important EuroImprovisers early in their career. Diffident Bailey, for instance, creates some wild, almost rock-oriented electric picking here with such vigor that it overwhelms the dual drummers. A far cry from his present persona as a balladeer, Rava produces some brassy, Don Ayler-like shakes. Meanwhile the triple keyboardists seem to be reconstituted as Cecil Taylor triplets, although during the course of the piece, one -- likely Schweizer -- offers up some inside piano harp glisses, along the lines for which she would later be better known.

Another small big band session that may have been on everyone’s mind at the time was John Coltrane’s less-than-five-years-old ASCENSION. Facing off against one another with cymbals and snares, flams, press rolls and march beats, Favre and Bennink are no Rich vs. Roach but suggest Elvin Jones times two. Additionally, some of the piano chording relates more to McCoy Tyner’s work with Trane than Taylor’s. All three trumpeters appear to be trying to see who can squeal the highest in bugle range as the theme is elaborated, though the plucked bass parts -- when they surface from the din -- may be more advanced than what Art Davis and Jimmy Garrison played on ADSCENSION. Dudek, Parker Brötzmann too generate enough screaming split tones to match Trane’s, Archie Shepp’s and Pharoah Sanders’ multiphonics on ASCENSION, often spitting out several bent notes simultaneously. Finally, as musical shards explode all over like bombs at an anarchist rally, the massed ferment builds to a combative crescendo, ending with the sustained single cymbal echo.

Too young or distanced to have experienced the excitement of 1960s’ Free Jazz? These two discs are the next best thing to being there.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: European: 1. European Echoes Part 1 2. European Echoes Part 2

Personnel: European: Manfred Schoof, Enrico Rava, Hugh Steinmetz (trumpets); Paul Rutherford (trombone); Peter Brötzmann, Gerd Dudek (tenor saxophones); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophone); Alexander Von Schlippenbach; Fred Van Hove, Irène Schweizer (pianos); Derek Bailey (guitar); Peter Kowald, Arjen Gorter (basses); Buschi Niebergall (bass and bass trombone); Han Bennink, Pierre Favre (drums)

Track Listing: Living: 1. The living music 2. Into the Staggerin 3. Wave 4. Tower 5. Lollopalooza 6. Past time

Personnel: Living; Manfred Schoof (cornet and flugelhorn); Paul Rutherford (trombone); Peter Brötzmann (tenor and baritone saxophones); Michel Pilz (bass clarinet and baritone saxophone); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano and percussion); J.B. Niebergall (bass and bass trombone); Han Bennink (drums and percussion)

December 16, 2002

GLOBE UNITY ORCHESTRA

Globe Unity ’67 & ‘70
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 223 CD

Souvenirs of a time when “globe unity” meant more than the convergence of commercial or military interests, this CD of never-before-released tracks feature a small army of Euro improvisers luxuriating in the freedom promulgated by John Coltrane’s ASCENSION and The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra.

Formed in late 1966, following a Berlin Jazz Festival commission for founder/pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, the Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO) evolved over the years from this wild-and-wooly Energy ensemble to one that joined other European large groups in a concern for compositions. Besides, many might find that these two pieces, initially taped for German radio, more exciting than what came from the band afterwards.

The more than 34-minute, 1967 performance, for instance, finds the less than a year old, 19-piece GUO taking full advantage of the era’s heady musical freedom. Roaring up and down the score is a literal who’s who of (in-the-main) German free jazzers, some of whom like saxophonist Peter Brötzmann -- here playing alto of all things -- bassist Peter Kowald and vibist Karl Berger (as an organizer/teacher) went on to greater and more varied expression. Some like reedman Willem Breuker, trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff and brassman Manfred Schoof turned to more conventional playing. A few musicians have since died and others have been lost in the mists of time.

In a composition made up of many climaxes, ending on an extended Wagnerian flourish, and which practically knocks over the listener with its sheer power, von Schlippenbach seems to be the leader only by osmosis. It’s pretty much every man for himself, spurred and taunted by a massed rhythm section of three percussionists, two bassists, a vibist, a tubaist and the pianist smashing a gong when the spirit moves him.

Especially impressive are Schoof soaring into the ozone layer with his cornet and high D trumpet, and Breuker puffing out some deep-dish baritone saxophone blats. Halfway through as well, Gunter Hampel’s flute and Willy Lietzmann’s tuba join for a minuet that suggests a rhinoceros sashaying with a crow. Additionally, the pianist sounds best two thirds of the way through, when he unleashes some space boogie-woogie, rather than at other places where he still seems in thrall to Cecil Taylor.

However with such a large aggregation and so many short solo peeping out of the dense musical mass, at times it’s hard to ascribe proper praise where it’s due. Is it Gerd Dudek or Heinz Sauer who takes the hairy-chested, Coltranesque tenor saxophone solo at the beginning; and does Hampel or Kris Wanders contribute bass clarinet bottom elsewhere? With everyone trying to contribute his two marks worth, identification become difficult.

Three years later, with the band members’ hair and beards grown even longer and wilder, the Germans are joined by Czech, Polish, French, Dutch and a whole contingent of British musicians -- most prominently saxophonist Evan Parker, guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Han Bennink. With the section swelled by U.K. trombonists Malcolm Griffiths and Paul Rutherford, the almost 18-minute piece is more brassy and thanks to Dutchman Bennink and his German opposite number Paul Lovens, more percussive. Interestingly enough, though, except for some minor guitar feedback at the top and a small circuit of protracted saxophone excavating in the middle -- which could come from any one of the five saxophonists -- neither Bailey nor Parker seems to showcase any part of what would soon become an instantly identifiable persona. Instead the -- at times -- nine brasses assert themselves more than the other instruments.

Cleaner than many live recordings, but not sonically perfect, the disc boosts the GUO’s slim discography and offers a fresh and memorable look at the band in its formative, most experimental, years.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Globe Unity ’67 2. Globe Unity ‘70

Personnel: ’67: Manfred Schoof (cornet, high D trumpet); Jürg Grau, Claude Deron (trumpet); Jiggs Wigham, Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone); Willy Lietzmann (tuba); Gunter Hampel (bass clarinet, flute); Peter Brötzmann (alto saxophone); Kris

Wanders (alto saxophone, bass clarinet); Gerd Dudek, tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet); Heinz Sauer (tenor and soprano saxophones); Willem Breuker baritone saxophone, clarinet); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano, bells, gong, tam-tam); Karlhanns Berger (vibraphone); Buschi Niebergall, Peter Kowald (bass); Jacki Liebezeit, drums, tympani); Mani Neumeier, Sven-Åke Johansson (drums)

Personnel: ’70: Kenny Wheeler (trumpet, flugelhorn); Schoof (trumpet, flugelhorn, high D trumpet); Tomas Stanko, Bernard Vitet (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths, Mangelsdorff, (trombone); Paul Rutherford (trombone, tenor horn); Niebergall (bass trombone, bass); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Michel Pilz (flute, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone); Dudek, tenor and soprano saxophones, flute); Sauer (alto, tenor and soprano saxophones); Brötzmann, tenor and baritone saxophones); von Schlippenbach (piano, percussion); Derek Bailey (guitar); Kowald (bass, tuba); Arjen Gorter (bass, electric bass); Paul Lovens (drums, percussion); Han Bennink, drums, shellhorn, dhung, gachi)

December 3, 2001