GANELIN / CHEKASIN / TARASOV ‎– Semplice (Me ‎– С60 21121 009 / LP-1984)

Label: Мелодия ‎– С60 21121 009

(white labels)

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: USSR / Released: 1984

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

Vilnius Recording Studio. Recorded of 1983.

Artwork [Painter] – E. Cukermanas

Engineer, Mixed By – E. Motiejūnas

Directed By – Vyacheslav Ganelin

Supervised By [Editor] – R. Zalnieriute

Matrix / Runout: С60-21121/2-1

Matrix / Runout: С60-21122/2-1

A - Semplice (Part 1) ............................................................................................ 20:38

B - Semplice (Part 2) ............................................................................................ 20:00

Personnel:

VYACHESLAV GANELIN – keyboards, piano [acoustic], keyboards [basset, casio-tone], horn  [hunting horn], percussion

VLADIMIR CHEKASIN – alto saxophone, trombone, flute [end-blown], percussion

VLADIMIR TARASOV – drums [sonor], percussion

Unlike many free jazz groups, Ganelin Trio is one that knows how to use space and dynamics, creating a sometimes incredible sense of drama.

As may be expected, "Semplice" is a huge, sprawling tapestry, full of rich and shifting textures. It begins like a piece of South Asian classical music, built up from absolute silence at first with the tenderest whispers of percussion, which gradually grow to crescendos, diminish again, and build back up.

Here, the Trio is a mini-orchestra as they employ ethnic percussion instruments, a vast array of woodwinds, horns and Casio electronic keyboards.

"Semplice" is evolving into various movements via a climactic and budding flow - offering disparate themes and tonalities aided by an abundance of meaningful dialogue. The Trio alternate instruments as if this were a Broadway play where three actors double up and multitask roles or more appropriately, a loosely based theatrical troupe. It doesn’t end there. This composition progresses into a series of structured motifs, as the band begin to develop rich melodies featuring memorable hooks and at various junctures elicit memories of the 80’s European Prog-Rock movement. “Semplice” is a brilliant piece of work as this Trio seemingly start with nothing yet gravitate towards complex, innovative ideas while pulling it all together in surprising fashion.

Ganelin's piano playing is colossal, and the dramatic power of his impassioned duetting with the smallest strains of sound (from the Casio) is astounding. When Chekasin's saxophones finally appear, they add a swashbuckling and unpredictable piquancy to this piece which is full of modern classical, modern jazz, and ancient references, but is unto itself a masterpiece.

Simply put “Semplice” is a remarkable recording and if you seldom had the opportunity to hear this legendary band......now is the time! Highly Recommended!

(Review By Glenn Astarita, AAJ)

If you find it, buy this album!

GANELIN / TARASOV / CHEKASIN – Con Anima (LP-1977)

Label: Мелодия ‎– C60-07361-2

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album / Country: USSR / Released: 1977

Style: Free Jazz, Contemporary Jazz, Free Improvisation

The track "Džiazo Kontrastai" is divided in two parts. Recorded in 1976.

Painting – E. Cukermanas

Photography By – G. Talas

Recorded By – Vilius Kondrotas

A - Džiazo Kontrastai, Con Anima (Part 1) . . . . . . . . . . 19:52

B - Džiazo Kontrastai (Pabaiga), Con Anima (Part 2) . . . . . . . . . . 20:50

Vyacheslav Ganelin – piano, keyboards [basset]

Vladimir Chekasin – alto sax, tenor sax, clarinet, chalumeau

Vladimir Tarasov – drums, percussion

In 1968, Ganelin formed a trio with percussionist Vladimir Tarasov and saxophonist Vladimir Rezitsky. Rezitsky left the trio in 1971, and was replaced with Vladimir Chekasin. The trio, called Ganelin Trio or GTCh, combined free jazz with elements of folk and classic music. It achieved critical acclaim in Soviet Union and abroad.

This line-up was solidified in 1971 and blew minds for a couple of decades. They started releasing albums - pretty much all of them live - in the late '70s for Russian emigre Leo Feigin's Leo Records imprint, and began to play jazz festivals in western Europe. Jazz critics worth a bean hailed them as the best free jazz group in the world. They might a been right.

In 1976 the trio performed at the Warsaw Jazz Jamboree. The same year, its first album, Con anima, was released...

The 1980 performance at the Berlin Jazz Festival was described by Joachim-Ernst Berendt "the wildest and yet the best organized and most professional free jazz I've heard in years".

In 1984, the trio toured in the UK, and in 1986, in the US...

The Ganelin Trio sounding like a basement-dwelling eastern European version of the Art Ensemble Of Chicago. There's some truth in that - the use of "small" and unconventional instrumenets in the mix, for one - but whereas the AEOC looked towards Africa for inspiration, Ganelin Trio are pure Euro avant-garde, mixing up folk melodies, Russophilian classical motifs (I doubt that's even a word...), hard-arsed improv of the FMP/Incus school and a real swing, the kind of momentum you only get from players who really understand jazz and that it's supposed to move.

Ganelin even plays synth and electric keys on occasion, and it absolutely works within the music. Chekasin's sax work closely resembles Ornette's late '60s/early '70s playing - high-energy blasts which rarely delve into Ayleresque screech territory - and Tarasov's percussive experiments are totally engaging in their use of all manner of kitchen-sink materials. Engaging is exactly what this music is. It never stays in the same place for too long, and the manner in which it combines what sound like familiar melodies w/ hot-wired improv is the stuff of the gods.

The music of the Ganelin Trio is something which should be known far and wide, certainly outside of its contemporary listenership of Wire readers and hopeless jazz nerds (both spectrums of which cover me adequately, thanks). You don't wanna miss this boat: they're totally worth it. Vyacheslav is still musically active today, making vital sounds 30-40 years later.

If you find it, buy this album!

GANELIN / CHEKASIN / TARASOV – Ancora Da Capo (LP-1986)

Label: Supraphon ‎– 1115 3014

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Stereo / Country: Czechoslovakia / Released: 1986

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded at the Supraphon Mozarteum Studio, Prague, on October 13, 1980.

Artwork By [Design] – Stanislav Dvorský

Executive Producer – Sláva Kunst

Photography [Backcover] – Luboš Svátek

Photography [Frontcover] – Petr Janyška

Producer, Recording Supervisor – Antonín Matzner

Recorded By – František Řebíček, Jan Chalupský

A - Ancora Da Capo (Part 1) . . . . . . . . . . 21:05

B - Ancora Da Capo (Part 2) . . . . . . . .  .  20:00

Vyacheslav Ganelin – piano, guitar, keyboards [basset], percussion, music

Vladimir Chekasin – alto sax, tenor sax, clarinet, bass clarinet, violin, percussion

Vladimir Tarasov – drums, bells, percussion

Composed by pianist/leader Vyacheslav Ganelin, Ancora Da Capo is an inspired major work consisting of two parts, recorded at Mozarteum Studio, Prague, on October 13 in 1980 and nearly 40 minutes long. The Ganelin Trio's brand of loosely structured free jazz was something really distinctive, though unfamiliar listeners might use the Art Ensemble of Chicago as a loose comparison since the two groups share several common elements: multi-instrumentalism (the trio's members play 16 instruments among themselves here); liberal uses of space, miscellaneous percussion sounds, and traditional/folk music references; and an anything-goes sense of humor. All of these qualities are evident on Ancora Da Capo. The piece has a few pre-composed themes (which are actually more alluded to than they are clearly stated) and an overarching form that guides the playing along, but the bulk of the music is heavily improvised within this larger framework. "Part 1" begins quietly with several minutes of chimes, shakers, and rattling percussion sounds before Ganelin and Vladimir Chekasin switch to piano and clarinet, respectively, improvising sparsely and patiently around a skeletal theme. Things heat up about halfway through when a new theme enters, as percussionist Vladimir Tarasov slides into a more propulsive free jazz groove and Chekasin's saxophone begins honking and vocalizing. Subsequently, there are more rattling percussion noises, some violin scrapes courtesy of Chekasin, a Ganelin piano solo that veers from fluid bop references to inside-the-instrument plucking, and a raucous finale that finds Chekasin quacking and literally screaming through his horn before he works his way back to the closing melodic theme. "Part 2" incorporates moments of actual toe-tapping, swing-like rhythms, along with primitive synthesizer sounds, more wild soloing from Chekasin (who sometimes blows two horns at once) and Ganelin, and, finally, a folk-like closing theme that brings things to a rousing conclusion. Ancora Da Capo has a rare balance of form and freedom, wildness and restraint that makes it continually surprising (at times even jarringly so) as well as remarkably durable in terms of repeated listening.

_Review by William York

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ALFRED 23 HARTH QuasarQuartet – POPendingEYE (1993)

Label: Free Flow Music Production – ffm 0493

Format: CD, Album; Country: Germany - Released: 1993

Style: Free Jazz, Free Improvisation

Recorded live 5th December 1992 at the Hindemith Hall of the Old Opera, Frankfurt

New Cover Design by ART&JAZZ Studio, by VITKO

Photography By – William Klein

Producer – S. Siebenlist

Technician [Ton] – T. Raisig

Live-Mitschnitt aus dem Hindemith-Saal der Alten Oper Frankfurt, 5. Dezember 1992.

Straight ahead energetic Jazz. Enjoy!

01. 1st2nd3rd&4th . . . 29:18

02. BukzokWestWostokSude . . . 29:38

QuasarQuartet:

Alfred 23 HARTH - tenor sax, bassclarinet

Simon NABATOV - piano

Vladimir TARASOV - drums and percussion

Vitold REK - bass

"I want more POPEYE", writes Alfred Harth. "Possessing uncompromising moral standards and resorting to force when threatened". He also refers to "my artist's way through postmodernism", which at the beginning of the 90s brought him to grow tired of "all those mixes, remixes, postmodernisms and pop" that he had gone through during the previous decade: he was ready to return to a "pure" approach, essentially based on real players and real instruments. Enter Russian drummer Vladimir Tarasov from the Ganelin Trio, a long-time admirer of Harth, met for the first time in 1992 when Mr.23 was invited by Moscow TV for a program about him; the next character after his portrait would be none other that Popeye the Sailor (hence the album's title, a word game with the ironical "end" of the "pop phase" of Alfred's career). Tarasov had imported all the early Harth albums in the USSR, playing together became a necessary consequence. The QuasarQuartet, formed by the saxophonist in the same year, sees Harth on tenor sax and bass clarinet and Tarasov on drums and percussion, plus the fabulous pianist Simon Nabatov and the excellent Vitold Rek on bass. "POPendingEYE" features two half-hour tracks in which everything (Coltrane-derived ascensions, logical freedom, contaminations of marching band rhythms, folk melodies, pyrotechnical pianism, sadly pensive reed lines) obeys to a logic that's inspired by Harth's idea of "opening to the East": in fact, besides this new musical situation, he met his current partner - South Korea's visual artist Soonjoo Lee - right at that time . Even the track titles, "1st2nd3rd&4th" and "BukzokWestWostokSude", respectively refer to the world's divisions ("...we know what the 3rd world is, but which would be the 1st?" says Harth) and to a mixture of Korean and English language to describe directions. And many directions this music points at, with a stimulating alternance of high-charge improvisations and melodic crystals that doesn't remind us about the players' originary lands, but it rather stands as a primary example of reciprocal instant comprehension: no language is a barrier when the instruments are the ones doing the talking. "POPendingEYE" - a meaningful record in the free music scene of the early 90s - has remained pretty obscure despite its quality; but it sure helped Alfred Harth to be "strong to the finish", as the Sailor himself would have it. The fact is, his creativity shined then and it still does. What finish, then? And what's your favourite brand of spinach, Alf?
Highly recommended.

_ Review by MASSIMO RICCI

Buy this album!