DÖRNER / ERICSON / HÅKER FLATEN / STRID - The Electrics – Live At Glenn Miller Café (2005)

Label: Ayler Records – aylCD-034

Format: CD, Album; Country: Sweden - Released: 2006

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded in concert at Glenn Miller Café, Stockholm, on October 3 and 4, 2005.

Composed By – Dörner, Flaten, Strid, Ericson

Cover – Åke Bjurhamn

Executive-producer – Jan Ström

Mixed By [Cd] – Billström, Strid, Ericson

Photography By – Lars Jönsson

Recorded By, Mastered By – Niklas Billström

Excellent session at Ayler's favorite Glenn Miller Café, free blowing yet tight arrangement with an open-minded approach to improvisation, including the minimal and fascinating "Electrance." Exciting and cutting edge music.

Axel Dörner 

Ayler Records first documented this quartet with Sture Ericson on reeds, Axel Dörner on trumpet, Ingebrigt Håker Flaten on bass, and Raymond Strid on drums during a live set on their first tour back in 2000. This release captures the group five years later during a run at the venerated Glenn Miller Café in Stockholm. In the intervening years, Dörner, Håker Flaten and Strid have gone on to record and perform in a wide variety of contexts (Ericson, a figure from the '80s Swedish jazz scene has still remained elusive based on his scant recorded output.) Like their first outing, this is another free blowing session and it is clear that the four revel in it. While Håker Flaten and Strid are known for this kind of setting, it is a kick to hear Dörner let loose in full free-jazz mode. While many think of him in settings like his trio with John Butcher and Xavier Charles, he's continued to show his passion for jazz-based outings like his recordings with Otomo Yoshihide's New jazz Orchestra or Alex Von Schlippenbach's Monk workouts. Ericson is more of an unfettered firebrand, whether sparring with Dörner or careening over the thundering pulse of the music. Yet he can also drop down to subtle textural abstractions, whispering his clarinet against the quiet shudders and creaks like the start of a piece like "Electroots". Here the four show that they are about more than just brawn and buster, kicking things off with a spare, floating, collective improvisation and slowly ratcheting up the activity level as the piece progresses. On the closing "Electraps", Ericson's bubbling bass clarinet, Dörner's muted trumpet smears, Håker Flaten's scraped arco, and Strid's pin-prick percussion etch out pointillistic interactions that builds with eddies of activity. This is the sort of session that showcases how the Northern Europeans continue to carve out their take on the free jazz tradition.

_ By MICHAEL ROSENSTEIN

Ayler Records:  http://www.ayler.com/cd-catalogue.html

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IMPROVISORS POOL featuring A. von SCHLIPPENBACH & S. RIVERS – Backgrounds For Improvisors (1996)

Label: FMP – FMP CD 75 

Format: CD, Album; Country: Germany - Released: 1996 

Style: Free Improvisation

Recorded on 5 April 1995 at 'Podewil', Berlin.
Photography By – Dagmar Gebers
New Cover Design by ART&JAZZ Studio, by VITKO
Producer – Johannes Bockholt-Dams
Producer, Recorded By [Live] – Jost Gebers
Recorded By [Live] – Holger Scheuermann


Review:
 
For those who've long admired Sam Rivers or Alexander von Schlippenbach, this set, recorded live in 1995, is one of those "grail"-like recordings. While both men have been rooted in large settings for improvisation over the past 40 years -- Rivers with his wonderful Winds of Manhattan group and von Schlippenbach with the Globe Unity Orchestra, they'd never met, much less played together, before the rehearsals for this date. FMP has done a stellar job of capturing a gig so charged and spirited, where the goodwill and encouragement inspired every member of this nonet to perform as both a soloist and a contributor to the unit - - perhaps beyond their own conception of potential. The members of this group, besides the two headliners, were well-known in Europe if not on the American improv and free jazz scenes: Tina Wrase on soprano saxophone, Axel Dörner on trumpet, Felix Wahnschaffe on alto saxophone, Tilman Denhard on flute and tenor, and Claas Willecke on baritone, with Horst Nonnenmacher on bass and drummer Johannes Bockholt-Dams rounding out the band. This comes out of the gate swinging with von Schlippenbach's "If You Say," with piano, bass, and drum kit ushering in a two- and then four-chord vamp, before the horns come in playing knotty and true as Rivers and Wrase engage in call and response above the chart. Rivers then gets big and takes the first solo with von Schlippenbach answering contrapuntally, alternating lines of his theme and playing tough blocky chords for the soloist to jump from. But it's rhythmically so engaging, it just swings like mad. Rivers' "Terrain" is next. Though it is more angular from the jump, it too is rooted in the melodic interpolation of Ornette Coleman and the edgier post-bop of Eric Dolphy. But truly, this one is all Rivers -- and one can hear the same composer of "Fuschia Swing Song" here as well as the arranger for the Winds of Manhattan. As the section engages with the rhythm players, the horn interplay here is just stunning -- it's so playful and whimsical. There is some seriously out playing in the middle where Rivers, Wrase, and Dörner engage in some counterpoint improvisation without the rest of the band.

The sparse "Top Dogs Double Hop," by von Schlippenbach, is actually a wonderful exercise for the arco playing of Nonnenmacher, Rivers' flute, and the intricate chromaticism of the composer. Most everyone gets in on the act for a bit, but it is so halting and deliberate that the listener is captivated by the multi-threaded melodic work for the flutes. "Background," by Rivers, is the longest piece here, and though it begins with his solo tenor, it is the hinge on which the rest of this date opens and closes. Here, the "background" is the rhythm section, charging furiously through a series of taut, dense patterns and vamps as Rivers solos furiously on top of them. When the horns enter full bore on one of the "choruses," it is like a window opening: an entirely new textural ground is laid, and a brilliant array of sonorities and colors presents itself anew as Dörner, Willecke, Rivers, Wrase, and Denhard dig in, playing through and around one another. While there are some dynamic changes and spatial interludes, for the most part this is an exhilarating ride and itself worth the price of admission. It makes the utterly meditative flute duet "Encounter" possible -- a breather for the listener -- before von Schlippenbach's closer, "The Forge." Here is where the "free" in free jazz comes from, stacked atop an opening theme that is knotty, at right angles, and full of thematics from European theater music, but it too approaches jazz's edgiest "swing." The brief spaces where one or two instruments wander are merely interludes as the next set of ideas is revved up for the go and von Schlippenbach conducts it all with mischievous glee. This is one of the true wonders -- of many -- in the FMP catalog, and a high point for both of the set's leaders.

_ By THOM JUREK



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BERLIN CONTEMPORARY JAZZ ORCHESTRA – Live In Japan '96 (1997)

Label: DIW Records – DIW-922
Format: CD, Album; Country: Japan - Released: 1997
Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation
Recorded live at Shin-Kobe Oriental Theatre on August 6 1996, except track 2 at Nakano ZERO Hall, Tokyo on 31 July 1996.
Produced by Alexander von Schlippenbach and Aki Takase
Associate producer: Kazue Yokoi / Executive producer: DIW/Disk Union
Recorded by Kimio Oikawa （及川公生 )
Assistant engineers: Nobuhiro Makita (Nakano ZERO Hall), Satoru Nakanishi (Shin-Kobe Oriental Theater)
Mastered by Keiko Ueda at Tokyu Fun, Tokyo
Photography by Hiroyuki Yamaguchi (Picture Disk) / Cover design by Yuri Takase

Conducted by Alexander von Schlippenbach & Aki Takase

Unlike pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach's earlier large aggregation, the free music pioneering Globe Unity Orchestra, the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra was conceived as a composer's forum as much as an improviser's. In addition to Schlippenbach's own provocative scores, the 10-year-old BCJO has commissioned works from Carla Bley, Kenny Wheeler, and others. The BJCO initially intended to use Berlin musicians exclusively, but has become an international unit, which now includes a sizable Japanese contingent including pianist and co-conductor Aki Takase, and such renowned English improvisers as saxophonist Evan Parker, trumpeter Henry Lowthar, and trombonist Paul Rutherford. Live in Japan '96 provides a fine one-disc synopsis of its evolution.

The program is evenly split between compositions by Schlippenbach and Takase and repertory items, including a Takase-arranged medley of Eric Dolphy compositions ("The Prophet," "Serene," and "Hat and Beard"); Schlippenbach's extrapolation of W.C.. Handy's "Way Down South Where The Blues Began;" and Willem Breuker's semi-sweet take on the Gordon Jenkins chestnut, "Goodbye." Yet, some of the most freely improvised passages of the program occur in the Dolphy suite (Rutherford's duet with drummer Paul Lovens harkens back to their '70s collaborations, while Parker's unaccompanied soprano solo is a testament to the ongoing vitality of his 30-year exploration of multiphonic textures).

Especially in the case of the pungent improvised ensemble embellishments in the Handy piece, free improvisations are well-integrated into the structure of the works.

Schlippenbach and Takase's compositions also encompass a wide spectrum of approaches. A reprise of Schlippenbach's skull-rattling "The Morlocks" is a reminder of the pianist's contributions to the machine gun aesthetic of the German avant-garde in the '60s. His "Jackhammer," however, is the program's best vehicle for racing, hard-edged, bop-inflected blowing, particularly by altoist Eichi Hayashi and the vastly underrated tenor, Gerd Dudek. Takase's "Shijo No Ai" intriguingly brackets a bracing collective improvisation with an almost florid, Evans-tinged chart. Schlippenbach and Takase are a formidable composer/arranger/pianist/conductor tag-team; the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra is an excellent vehicle for their uncompromising work.

_ By Bill Shoemaker (JazzTimes)



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CARL LUDWIG HÜBSCH'S PRIMORDIAL SOUP – Primordial Soup (2007)

Label: Red Toucan Records – RT 9331
Format: CD, Album; Country: Canada - Released: March 2007
Style: Free Improvisation, avant-garde, Free Jazz
Recorded In April 2005 live at Loft, Cologne. Germany or at Neuwerk 13 Studios, Lahr, Germany
Recorded By – André Horsmann (tracks: 3, 6), Christian Heck (tracks: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7 to 9)
All tracks composed by Carl Ludwig Hübsch

"My playing is focused on music as a structure in time. All focus is on the genesis of the moment. While emphasis and plot are fragmented and given the freedom of a new point of departure, utmost care is given to awareness of musical flow and continuity of the play. Through the use of avant-garde and self-invented performance techniques, the tuba acquires completely new characteristics as a brass instrument. An innovative array of unexpected sounds is heard, the instrument is seen from a fresh perspective, and the audience is confronted with a novel way of perceiving time."
(Carl Ludwig Hübsch)

Primordial Soup is based on material composed by Hübsch, who is accompanied by three of the best artists of the German jazz improvisation scene. An innovative listening experience through an amorphous, unrecognizable, de/structured sound.

Review:

Carl Ludwig Hübsch's Primordial Soup is made up of German free jazz stars, yet they are called upon to navigate some very complex compositions. That is not to say that the pieces do not allow for some extended improvisation. It is just the knowing where the written stops and the free starts that is beyond recognition.

The opening track, a twelve-minute introduction into Primordial Soup's mission statement tentatively slips across as a classical piece of music that is extended, elongated and infused with improvisation tools. Midway through NGC 2271 Hades Bb the logical progression of the composition stops. The nothingness begins again with trumpeter Axel Dörner's whispered breath technique. Is it the same song, but with a written passage of silence? It certainly must be the breathy growls and uttered tones, whether improvised or notated, are mood stabilizers.

It is as if the composer has written with tools that are all now familiar within free jazz; he has simply gathered them into his color palate for music making. The obvious reference for a track like NGC 2273 Vier/Four with the off-kilter measure and the tuba bottom is Anthony Braxton. But Hübsch is less serious (in the best sense of the word) than Braxton. Compositions written here must have been developed with the individual players in mind. Hübsch allows the familiar playing of Dörner and Gratkowski to blossom as he does not straightjacket each player by his writing. For his part, the drummer Michael Griener is a colorist and a fine collaborator with the other players.

This music might be one of the finer examples of how free jazz can be tailored into not randomly coherent, but orchestrated, coherence.

_  By Mark Corroto (AAJ)


This music has great depth, and what the musicians manage to create, not only by getting unknown sounds out of their instruments, but also by creating sound sculptures you've never heard before, is a great listening experience.

_ by Stef Gijssels (FreeJazz)



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CARL LUDWIG HÜBSCH'S PRIMORDIAL SOUP – Souped-Up (Live-2008)

Label: Jazzwerkstatt - Catalog#: jw096
Format: CD, Album; Country: Germany - Released: 25 Jan 2011
Style: avant-garde, free improvisation, Contemporary Jazz, Free Jazz
Recorded live at Jazzclub Karlsruhe on June 5th, 2008 by SWR2.
Artwork – Beatrix Göge, Jorgo Schäfer
Engineer – Alfred Habelitz, Matthias Neumann
Executive-producer – Ulli Blobel; Liner Notes – Christoph Wagner; Mastered By – Reinhard Kobialka

Hübsch s group is a German avant jazz supergroup that plays complex music at a meeting point between improv jazz and new music. Through the use of avant-garde and self-invented performance techniques, the tuba acquires completely new characteristics as a brass instrument.

Review:

Whither avant jazz in the waning years of the aughts? It's a tough question and the attempts at extending its great lineage are often problematic and sometimes result in a bit of head-scratching. Depending on one's frame of reference, a possible source of an especially wide shadow of influence is Anthony Braxton. All well and good, but there's a line between influence and over-emulation; to these ears, Hübsch largely finds himself on the wrong side of that marker.

This Braxton leaning is leant even more weight by the presence of clarinetist Frank Gratkowksi, an extremely able player whose own work is also much indebted to him. With the leader on tuba, the quartet is rounded out by the always-fascinating Axel Dörner (trumpet) and Michael Griener (drums), forming a nice three-horns plus percussion grouping that certainly lends itself to the intricacies of the pieces. Right from the get-go, on "Floater, Gesten Part 1", we're in Braxton territory, a bubbling start/stop theme that nods to Tristano-era bop while pointing outwards. It's just very hard not to hear it as an augmentation of, say, a Braxton/Lewis/Leo Smith/Altschul ensemble — the sonorities and approaches are quite similar, which isn't to say "bad", not at all, just a little odd in the overt referential character at such a late date. One could ask, "Why bother?" no matter how effectively the task is handled. And it's all done very well, to be sure. There's a fine nimbleness in play here, especially from Gratkowski and Dörner, who handle the jagged written lines with ease and grace and inject a decent amount of grit and spittle into what could easily have been a far more "clean" operation. Track three, "Vier", even strays into march territory, again causing one to wonder if you're in 1976.

The final cut, "Solist am Rand", ventures the furthest from the Braxton comfort zone and is, unsurprisingly, the most successful offering, a broad palette of breath tone lamina over skittering drums that pulsates with a life of its own that owes little to obvious precursors; one wants to hear much more in this direction. Elsewhere...well, I imagine there are Braxton aficionados who are quite happy with hearing replications of his ideas by the next generation of instrumentalists and those listeners will doubtless be well pleased by what's contained here, as engagingly and efficiently as it's served up. But those who value the great Chicagoan's creativity and advancement of new ideas might wonder why musicians who admire him so don't try to do the same thing instead of imitating him.

_ by Brian Olewnick, 2011-05-11


THE MUSICIANS:

Axel Dörner born 1964 in Cologne, 1988-89 studied piano at the Conservatory of Arnheim (NL) 1989-96 studied piano and trumpet (with Malte Burba) at the Academy of Music in Cologne. Has lived in Berlin since1994. Has worked together with numerous musicians of international import in the areas of improvised music, new music and jazz. He developed an exceptional, very personal style of trumpet playing, based partly on rare techniques mixed with his own inventive style.

Frank Gratkowski, Born in Hamburg, 1963. æAlto saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabass clarinet, flute, composition Studied at the Hamburg Conservatory (Hamburger Musikhochschule) at the Cologne Conservatory of Music with Heiner Wiberny, graduating in 1990. Further studies with Charlie Mariano, Sal Nistico and Steve Lacy. Soloist in various international formations (Musikfabrik NRW, Tony Oxley Celebration Orchestra, Bentje Braam, WDR Big band etc.). Solo performances throughout Europe, Canada and USA. Duo w/Georg Graewe (CD "VicissEtudes"). "Frank Gratkowski Trio" w/ Dieter Manderscheid, Gerry Hemingway, +Wolter Wierbos. Duo w/ Sebastiano Tramontan, Trio w/ Wilbert De Jode + Paul Lovens.. Frank Gratkowski played on nearly every German and on numerous international Jazz Festivals. He has been teaching saxophone and ensembles at the Cologne, Hannover and Berlin Conservatory of Music and is giving workshops all around the world as well.

 Michael Griener moved from Nürnberg to Berlin some years ago and since then is one of the most demanded drummers for all cases. Played with traditional heroes like Herb Ellis, radikal players like Barry Guy, stars of the Berlin scene like Axel Dörner or sound explorers like Zeena Parkins. He proofed to be the perfect player for all oppourtunities as he understands to play the most special idea in his very own way finding the right balance between his own play and the given context. His selftought stile merging flow and fragility is unique as well as his coolness. Eric Mandel for the program of Jazz Fest Berlin `99.

 

Carl Ludwig Hübsch, tuba, composition drum- and singing studies Freiburg, south Germany, classical tuba training. Studies in improvisation, tuba (H.Gelhar) and composition (J.Fritsch) in Cologne. Played Jazz-, Improvised or New Music with Lester Bowie, W. Breuker, M. Schubert, Frank Gratkowski, Jasper vanÇt Hof, Arthur Blythe a.m.o. Numerous radio- und CD-produktions. Composes music for theatre . Toured India, Namibia and the USA. 2002: OMI fellowship in the USA. 2003: "Jazzpott"-award Essen.

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AXEL DÖRNER, JOHN SCHRÖDER, CLAYTON THOMAS, OLIVER STEIDLE - Das Treffen (2009)

Axel Dörner, John Schröder, Clayton Thomas, Oliver Steidle - Das Treffen, 2009
Label: Jazzwerkstatt; Catalog#: jw059
Country: Germany
Recorded at Studio P4, Nalepastraße, Berlin, December 12 & 13, 2008
(avant-garde, free improvisation, Contemporary Jazz, Free Jazz)


Note:

The first time in Chicago was all settled yet by phone, then there was the end of the salary barely above what. With e-mail, it now costs almost nothing to organize contacts and concert performances, as well as the flights are cheaper. If the trumpeter Axel Dörner reported his concert tours - actually, he's the whole year in the wide world of improvised music on the go - then it is not surprising bad. Dörner does not have a web presence, and his phone is often turned off, but the influential American jazz magazine Down Beat him one of the handful of European musicians, who will be able to jazz of the 21st Century add important and visionary music. In June, he will meet with Alexander von Schlippenbach and the band go The big disappointment on tour of Canada in order to present the complete works of Thelonious Monk in a new and pleasurable cooked version. At the trade fair Jazz Ahead, held just in Bremen, the jazz festival director Ken Pickering from Vancouver already enthused by the great music of the Berlin band and told how long you've been working on her tour. Dörner aware of his importance in the scene, international awards confirm him as the great innovators and experts. About the precarious situation in the field of improvised music he makes still worried. That one on the jazz show in Bremen but everywhere got the feeling that the world is watching Berlin, even if the European capital of jazz really was the theme at any of the numerous panel discussions, is good. Whether the highly subsidized French and Danes: they afford to own all festivals in Berlin and want to benefit from the creative atmosphere of the city. Even Alex Dutilh, chief of Jazzman, the main French jazz magazine plans to later this year, a Berlin- based businesses. The current issue can be found ever a portrait of the Berlin bassist Clayton Thomas, who is one of the key drivers of the local scene. His presentation tool includes rods and strips of wood and metal, a battered Australian car license plate, Filzklöppel and bows. As he puts these things between the strings, pushes and hits, he elicits from his instrument sounds that act strange, defiant and sometimes quite funny. That the people that you talk so much elsewhere in Berlin now also appear together fits. On Saturday, 2 May, they celebrate on the big stage debut: Along with John Schroeder, piano, and Oliver Steidle, drums, and Thomas Dörner occur in the Babylon under the name "Das Treffen ” (The meeting) on (20 clock).

By Christian Broecking


Review:

Bassist Clayton Thomas is known to wedge a license plate between his strings and lists both Luigi Nono and Ghostface Killah as influences. A search for John Schröder's career shows that he's as respected a jazz guitarist as a drummer as a protege pianist. Downtown sound by way of Nirnberg Music Conservatory drummer / human metronome Oliver Steidle (currently on permanent tour with trio Der Rote Bereich, then Klima Kalima, et cetera) recently added a Korg Kaoss Pad to his kit. And, from Thelonious Monk tribute bands to interpretations of Cage-esque performance art works to classically trained pianist to adept trombonist to feedback tweaker to trumpeter, Axel Dörner also wears many hats. So you better hang on to yours (you know...your hat?)

Recorded in 2008, the quartet begins "Res Res" with an analog warble and frantic typewriter style metal pings, Schröder quickly adding to the mulch with high-pitched prepared arpeggiations (on this disc, he has a tendency to work towards a centered point as the others push away). As a gradually overwhelming siren-like pulse takes over, bass and drums give into the pianist's whim and move to a brief, speedy segment of polyglot gestures to match that of "Giant Steps"; Dцrner puts down the mixing board, picks up the trumpet and joins with a matching set of punctuating blasts. Like an intruding sunspot, the mood is ruptured for a moment with rattling metal (possibly by the license plate); they continue briefly before Schröder adopts a limited range staccato plunk (think toy piano) and Steidle moves to his own corner of contrapuntal minimalism. For the climax, Dörner and Steidle return to the original motif (Schröder advancing alone, now mixing two-part invention with romantic, lounging swagger), then spin a shrunken reduction — turntablist style — through the heart of a piece that travelled from Christian Marclay to Oscar Peterson to Xenakis in under eighteen minutes. Following suit on the looser "Baby Doll", the group wanders through a lugubrious series of extended techniques and puffing drones, all framed around Thomas's solo flight of texture, harmonics and resonance. Nine minutes in, something slips and on a lark they're back, sort of, bouncing between a tough swing, on-a-dime tempo shifts to a straighter, quicker groove and a mix of both — oh and here comes that swirling, hand-pushed turntable sound to introduce a scene change into even murkier musique concrete / electroacoustic improv. For "Nautic Walking", the quartet straddles their bi-polar approach while adding microbursts of rock and late '80s break-neck hardcore rhythms to the merry go round. Of course this union is rife with disparate agendas — it should be; but the surprise is how well this internal dissonance (working together by working apart, if you will) galvanizes global accordance and organic progression in the music; with Das Treffen (German for "The Meeting"), diverse individuality gives the album a portentous and distinct personality.

by Dave Madden




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