WERNER LÜDI SUNNYMOON – Serendipity (C W R – CW 1009 / LP-1987)

Label: Creative Works Records – CW 1009

Format: Vinyl, Album, LP / Country: Switzerland / Released: 1987

Style: Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at Soundville Recording Studios, Luzern, January 1987.

Mastered At – CBS Studios, London

Design – Guy Bettini

Engineer – René J. Zingg

Producer – Werner Lüdi Sunnymoon

Liner Notes Verfasser: Werner Lüdi

Matrix / Runout (Side A): CW 1009 A-1 SVS 206 A-1

Matrix / Runout (Side B): CW 1009 B

The cover jacket has two large holes (front and back) and is printed inside so, if it's empty, you can see a far moon in a black sky and a far sun in a clear sky. Insert the inner sleeve and you get a black or white sky. Insert the double insert and you may have a lunar footprint and a sun crown, or a globe with trees and a second one with an ancient map on it, or a washing machine door and an actress' nice face and so on.

side A

A1 - Second Story Twilight : A Manhattan Melodrama ......................................... 7:44

A2 - Jungle Moon In June ..................................................................................... 5:12

A3 - Carolina Morning ........................................................................................... 4:51

side B

B1 - Macho Duck Disco ........................................................................................ 6:06

B2 - Santorini Sailing Sun ..................................................................................... 5:45

B3 - Blindado Flying Circus .................................................................................. 5:18

Personnel:

Werner Lüdi – alto saxophone

Hans Koch – tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone

Stephan Wittwer – electric guitar

Martin Schütz – bass, cello

Dieter Ulrich – drums, percussion, bugle

Werner Lüdi (April 22, 1936 in Poschiavo, Graubünden – June 21, 2000 in Zurich) was a Swiss jazz musician (alto and baritone saxophone) and author.

Lüdi spent the early years of his life in Val Poschiavo and spent his youth in Landquart, where he played accordion in a band. He became familiar with cool jazz and played baritone saxophone in Tone Schädler's band. In 1958, he moved to Hamburg, where he participated in jam sessions. In jam sessions, he got to know Peter Brötzmann.

In 1964, he made a tour as an alto saxophonist with Gunter Hampel's band for one year and then, he went to Munich, where he made jam sessions with Pierre Favre. Then, he came back to Switzerland in 1966 and started to work as a photographer in a public relations office and copywriter in an advertising agency.

In 1981, Lüdi came again to jazz scene and founded the group Sunnymoon with Stephan Wittwer, Fredy Studer and Léon Francioli. In 1984, Hans Koch, Martin Schütz, Timo Fleig and Lüdi played free improvisation in this group. Later, Koch, Schütz, Lüdi and Paul Lovens performed together. At the end of 1980s, he played with Mani Neumeier, Wädi Gysi and the trumpet player Mich Gerber as the group Blauer Hirsch.

He has performed also with Brötzmann's Märzcombo, Butch Morris, Sainkho Namtchylak, Peter Kowald, William Parker, Saadet Türköz, Burhan Öçal, Peter Conradin Zumthor and Daniel Seiler.

If you find it, buy this album!

TED CURSON with GEORGES ARVANITAS TRIO – Pop Wine (LP-1971)

Label: Futura Records – GER 26

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album & Country: France Released: 1971

Style: Free Jazz, Leftfield, Contemporary Jazz

Recorded 18 June 1971 at Europasonor Studio, Paris

Design – Pierre Delgado

Layout – Jean-Pierre Bonnet

Photography By – Christian Fauchard, Philippe Gras

Recorded By – Claude Martenot

Producer – Gérard Terrones

Composed By – Ted Curson

Matrix / Runout (Side A Etched Runout): Fut. 2028 A MP

Matrix / Runout (Side B Etched Runout): Fut. 2028 B MP

side A

A1 - Pop Wine ...................................................................................................... 5:10

A2 - L.S.D. Takes A Holiday ............................................................................... 12:40

A3 - Song Of The Lonely One .............................................................................. 5:45

side B

B1 - Quartier Latin .............................................................................................. 13:20

B2 - Flip Top ......................................................................................................... 6:30

Personnel:

Ted Curson – trumpet, piccolo trumpet

Georges Arvanitas – piano

Jacky Samson – bass

Charles Saudrais – drums, percussion

This Futura LP issue of vanguard trumpet legend Ted Curson with the Georges Arvanitas Trio in a Paris studio is one of those very special dates where everything seems to go right.

Curson is in excellent form here, whether he is playing free improvisation as on "Latin Quarter," and is a fiery 13-minute excursion into the outer reaches of free jazz, or turning in a slightly bent but nonetheless streaming hard-bop performance as on the "Flip Top." The Arvanitas Trio, an under-celebrated band that backed virtually every major American musician in Paris proves how well it adapts to Curson's muscular style by responding with more muscle. Arvanitas' left-hand rhythm comping is tough and full of fire and edges. On "L.S.D. Takes a Holiday," Arvanitas pushes Curson hard to the edges of a harmonic shelf that finally bleeds off into a blazing symmetry of angles that is propelled into an abyss by the ferocious bass playing of the under-heralded Jacky Sampson. Also noteworthy are Curson's compositions here that, like much music of their time, leave tradition to the dust. He engages it and the blues in a sort of modal inquiry, where he wraps extant ideas about form, tonal sonance, and intervallic architecture in a phraseology and compositional elegance that was beyond most of his peers. Futura's LP sounds warm, lovely, and very much alive.

Review by Thom Jurek, AllMusic

If you find it, buy this album!