ASSOCIATION P.C. – Erna Morena (LP-1973) Live at Auditorium Maximum of the University Freiburg, Germany

Label: MPS Records – 21 21542-3

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: Germany / Released: 1973

Style: Free Jazz, Experimental, Free Improvisation

Recorded in concert at SWF Jazz Session Freiburg April 25, 1972

Design, Photography By [Cover] – Heinz Bähr

Engineer [Recording] – Anneliese Schroeder, Rainer Pöppl

Photography By – Jochen Mönch

Producer – Joachim E. Berendt

A1 - Frau Theunissen's Kegel . . . . . . . . . . 8:51

         (Composed By – Toto Blanke)

A2 - Erna Morena Part 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15:13

      a) Space Erna

          (Composed By – Association P.C.)

      b) Erna In India

           (Composed By – Jasper Van't Hof)

B -  Erna Morena Part 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22:45

      c) Erna Aude Maxima

           (Composed By – Jasper Van't Hof)

      d) Only Grass In My Stomach

           (Composed By – Siggi Busch)

      e) Schnoor 8

           (Composed By – Pierre Courbois)

Toto Blanke – guitar

Jasper van't Hof – electric piano, organ

Siggi Busch – bass, electric bass

Pierre Courbois – drums, percussion

guest

Karl-Heinz Wiberny – alto clarinet, alto and tenor saxophones

Association P.C. was founded in 1969 by Dutch keyboarder Jasper van’t Hof along with the Dutch drummer Pierre Courbois and the German guitarist Toto Blanke. The bassist was sometimes the Dutchman Peter Krijnen, sometimes the German Sigi Busch. Association P.C released their first record “Sun Rotation” in 1971. The band produced a synthesis of jazz, rock and avantgarde music reminding sometimes Soft Machine and was highly acclaimed at the Berlin Jazztage of 1971.”Eighty percent of Association P.C. was electronics”, Jasper recalls.

In 1972 the band released their second record “Erna Morena”, the last with Jasper van’t Hof who left the band to form Pork Pie with Charlie Mariano and Philip Catherine.On the 1973 release “Rock Around The Clock”he was replaced by German pianist Joachim Kühn. The record moved away from the Canterbury oriented sound and integrated free-jazz elements. Their last record “Mama Kuku” (1974) contained live recordings from 1973, on which the band was joined by American flute player Jeremy Steig. Association P.C. continued to tour until 1975.

Erna Morena just exudes cool – the kinda cool that gives me a buzz anyway.  track two with the electronic pips and thrusts usually reserved for the brassy / reedy wind section the combination of electronic with the substantial grounding of the jazz breathes a fresh new life into a cruizy classic sound.  While its true that the postman was never likely to be whistling one of Association P.C. tunes as he did his rounds, the place music like this reaches inside is the place that life is forged. This music will change you, and change you for the better. Their aim was to: “transcend the boundaries of traditional forms” of music. This they did with considerable accomplishment, involving the talents at various times of some of Europe’s best new jazz musicians:

drummer Pierre Courbois

bassists Siggi Busch and Peter Krijnen

guitarist Toto Blanke

keyboard players Joachim Kühn and Jasper van't Hof

saxmen Karl-Heinz Wiberny and Lol Coxhill

flautist Jeremy Steig

I’ve said it before and I will say it again.  Anything that Lol Coxhill is willing to get involved in will rip you out and start you over.

“Erna Morena” is one of the two live recordings released by the band, and that was very much in keeping with what they were doing. I was fortunate enough to catch them at a gig at Brighton College of Art on England’s south coast. My memory tells me that this would have been around the time when “Erna Morena” was recorded in Freiburg – April 25, 1972. Unfortunately for what it says about my memory, they were joined on the occasion of my attendance by a young flute player, Jeremy Steig, who was already building a reputation as one of his generation’s shining stars and has since become a leading and widely- recorded jazz improviser. Officially, Steig and the band came together rather later than that, so this period is still a little hazy for me. I know, that’s what they all say…

From the liner notes: “The term “free””, in the context of “freeform music”, “after being used in the 60s mainly to mean “beyond tonality, melody and metre”…now stands for an entirely new quality of musical freedom in the music of Association P.C….it signifies really sovereign mastery over all musical areas.” Judging by what I saw, I have no grounds to dispute that statement.

_ By LISATHATCHER on February 28, 2012 In Music Reviews

If you find it, buy this album!

ASSOCIATION P.C + JEREMY STEIG – Mama Kuku - Live! (LP-1974)

Label: MPS Records – 21 21840-6

Format: Vinyl, LP / Country: Germany / Released: 1974

Style: Fusion, Free Improvisation

Recorded June 1973 live at Arkadenhof, Alte Universität Freiburg/Br., Germany (Tracks A1 to A5) and in Salle de Spectacles Epalinges/Lausanne, Switzerland (Track B)

Design – Bernhard Wetz

Engineer – Claude Blanc (tracks: B), Conny Plank (tracks: A1 to A5)

Engineer [Assistance] – Jean-Pierre Molliet (tracks: B), Raymond Bernard (tracks: B)

Mixed By – Conny Plank

Producer – Joachim E. Berendt

A1 - Mama Kuku . . . . . 5:46

         (Siggi Busch, Toto Blanke)

A2 - Bold'n Steig . . . . . 5:45

         (Jeremy Steig, Joachim Kühn)

A3 - Dr. Hoffmann . . . . . 4:30

         (J. Steig, J. Kühn, P. Courbois, S. Busch, T. Blanke)

A4 - Ecnelis . . . . . 4:46

         (Pierre Courbois)

A5 - Bassamagic . . . . . 4:17

         (Jeremy Steig)

B   - Lausanne . . . . . 21:52

         (J. Steig, J. Kühn, P. Courbois, S. Busch, T. Blanke)

Toto Blanke – guitar

Joachim Kühn – electric piano [Fender]

Siggi Busch – bass

Pierre Courbois – drums, percussion

+

Jeremy Steig – flute, piccolo flute, bass flute

With their clever combination of free jazz, rock and other musical markers, it's a wonder that Dutch percussionist Pierre Courbois and Association P.C. never received more credit. Released in 1974 on MPS, provides an opportunity to hear this largely spontaneous group in fine form, culled from a series of 1973 performances in Germany and Switzerland that also featured guest flautist Jeremy Steig.

Freedom needn't imply lack of form, as Mama Kuku kicks off with the effervescent title track. Bassist Siggi Busch opens alone with a combination of long, resonating notes, strummed chords and harmonics. Guitarist Toto Blanke joins in with a cued figure that signals Courbois and pianist Joachim Kühn to accompany in a fiery, overdriven modal solo that comes from John McLaughlin territory, albeit closer to John Surman's Where Fortune Smiles (Dawn, 1971) rather than the more rockified Mahavishnu Orchestra. Blanke ends his solo with another cue that leads into a relaxed, repetitive Latin-esque figure for Steig's solo, where the flautist moves seamlessly between the in and the out.

"Bold 'n' Steig" is a purely spontaneous Steig/Kühn duet. By this time Kühn had already established a reputation as a stylistically encyclopedic player, as comfortable in the mainstream with Joe Henderson as he was in more avant-garde settings with Don Cherry. Here, the duo covers considerable territory—from neoclassicism to outré but funky rhythms—but always with a sense of purpose that gives the piece a surprisingly structured feel. Steig made his name as one of the first jazz/rock flautists, but here his ability to move synchronously with Association P.C.'s ever-shifting landscapes proves that a traditionally mellifluous instrument can be as jagged and assertive as any other. Steig's flute dominates the droning but increasingly dynamic "Dr. Hofmann," but it's everyone in the pool on the idiosyncratic and aggressive "Ecnelis"—a tune that prompted Steig to ask Courbois and Busch, "How come you can play completely without rhythm—and it swings!"

Plans for the musicians to send each other sheet music prior to meeting and rehearse before their first performance never happened. A potential disaster for some, Association P.C.'s extant chemistry had already been honed on four other MPS albums. Nowhere is this more evident than on "Lausanne," a 22-minute free improvisation that, like the five other considerably shorter pieces on Mama Kuku, leaves an impression of preconception where clearly there was none.

Based on the varied textures, rhythms and tonalities of Mama Kuku, Steig's falling below the radar in the early 1980s is a real shame, a sentiment true for all members of Association P.C. save Kühn, who has gone on to a long, varied and internationally visible career. It's yet another example of a fine improvising group that disappeared into the flotsam and jetsam of history.

By JOHN KELMAN, March 29, 2008 (AAJ)

If you find it, buy this album!

ASSOCIATION / PIERRE COURBOIS – Earwax (LP-1970)

Label: Munich Records – 6802 634 M1

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold / Country: Netherlands / Released: 1970

Style: Free Jazz, Jazz-Rock

Recorded at "Middelhorst" Studio Wageningen by "AUDIO" geluidsregistratie, Oct. 30 (A side) and 31 (B side), 1970.

Design [Front Cover Design] – Dick Muileman

Engineer – Dick Van Schuppen

Photography By – Rinus Smit

Photography By, Supervised By – Job Zomer

Producer – Wim Wigt

A1 - Spider . . . . . 4:26

         (Written-By – Toto Blanke)

A2 - Hit The P. Tit . . . . . 10:58

         (Written-By – Jasper Van't Hof, Pierre Courbois)

A3 - Elsen . . . . 1:42

         (Written-By – Jasper Van't Hof)

B1 - Earwax . . . . . 7:18

         (Written-By – Pierre Courbois)

B2 - Round A'bout Nine . . . . . 6:39

         (Written-By – Jasper Van't Hof, Peter Krijnen, Pierre Courbois, Toto Blanke)

B3 - Jazzper . . . . . 4:01

         (Written-By – Jasper Van't Hof)

Toto Blanke – guitar

Jasper Van't Hof – electric piano

Siggi Busch – bass (tracks: A1 to A3)

Peter Krijnen – bass (tracks: B1 to B3)

Pierre Courbois – drums, percussion

drummer Pierre Courbois and keyboard player Jasper van't Hof pose on cars in Amsterdam, Netherlands on 10th June 1984. (photo by Frans Schellekens/Redferns)

ASSOCIATION PC was formed in 1969 by Dutch drummer Pierre Courbois and was originally known as simply ASSOCIATION. Just look at the album cover provided here and you'll see that that was the case with this the debut album released in 1970, while Pierre Courbois' name is in smaller print on the lower left side of the album cover. The band was a multi-national group with Germans and Dutch making up the lineups over the years. This is an all-instrumental affair with the music being in the Jazz/Rock and Free Jazz sub-genres. Some of you may have heard of the guitarist named Toto Blanke who puts on a show in his unique style but then I have to say that each member blows me away with their performances on here.

"Spider" is up first and it's an energetic, uptempo track with intricate guitar sounds and lots of cymbals, bass and keyboards. We get a brief drum solo(hey it's his band and there will be more solos to come) after 2 minutes then the keyboards lead the way a minute later but not for long. A complex opening number. "Hit The P. Tit" is the longest song at 11 minutes. The guitar sounds different here as he rips it up while we get some jazzy drum patterns and bass to fill out the sound. The guitar is almost experimental sounding here. The sparse electric piano reminds me of early seventies Miles Davis. Some insanity follows that makes me believe these guys were influenced by Free Jazz. We get a calm and the bass solos after 4 minutes and this continues until around 5 1/2 minutes in. A full sound returns after 6 minutes sounding much less experimental than before and quite jazzy. Another calm arrives as we get an interesting drum solo then back to the full sound before 9 1/2 minutes. Some fuzz here as well.

"Elsen" is one I really like. Just a feel good, melodic beauty but it's so short at just over 1 1/2 minutes. "Earwax" is a top three song for me and what a pleasure to focus on the instrumental work of all these guys. So intricate and sophisticated. A drum solo before 6 minutes that lasts just under a minute. "Round A'bout Nine" and the next and final track fill out my top three songs. This one starts with a bass solo and it continues for some time. Some drum work then the guitar joins in around 4 minutes along with more of that early seventies Miles Davis sounding electric piano. So good. "Jazzper" is another beauty as keys, bass, drums and guitar impress with their intricate and melodic sounds. The title of this song is a play on words i'm sure on the keyboardists first name(Jasper).

Review by Mellotron Storm

PROG REVIEWER

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JOACHIM KÜHN – Cinemascope (LP-1974, MPS/BASF Records)

Label: MPS Records/BASF – 21 22270-5

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold & Country: Germany / Released: 1974

Style: Fusion, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded May 74 at Conny's Studio.

Artwork By [Cover Art] – Gabriele Laurenz

Artwork By [Design] – Bernhard Wetz

Engineer – Conny Plank

Photography – Bernhard Wetz

Producer – Joachim Kühn, Rolf Kühn

A1/A2 - Zoom - Part 1/Part 2 . . . . . 9:11

               (Written-By – Joachim Kühn, Toto Blanke)

A3 -       One String More . . . . . 8:17

               (Written-By – Joachim Kühn, John Lee)

A4 -       Vibrator . . . . . 2:23

B1/B2 - Travelling - Part 1/Part 2 . . . . . 11:35

               (Written-By – Joachim Kühn, Rolf Kühn)

B3 -       Success . . . . . 5:13

B4 -       Black Tears . . . . . 5:23

Joachim Kühn – leblanc alto sax, fender rhodes electric piano,

                           rabox loudspeaker unit, stramp amplifier

Toto Blanke – electric guitar

John Lee – bass, bass (electric)

Gerry Brown – drums, percussion

Rolf Kühn – arranged, conductor (string orchestra)
Zbigniew Seifert – electric violin (track A3)

Joachim Kühn, talented jazz and fusion keyboardist who had many albums through the 60s and 70s (and beyond). "Cinemascope" is probably the rarest from this time frame, and the one that is most aligned with my personal focus from a musical standpoint. A very strong fusion effort, with Toto Blanke lighting it up on guitar. Features a brilliant gatefold cover.

If you find it, buy this album!