BERLINER IMPROVISATIONS QUARTETT ( AMIGA, 1979)
This lp opened my ears for the Free Music scene in the GDR. It's not Free Jazz or Free Improvisation. It is a category of its own. Although the lyrics are "spoken" (a reference could be "Pierrot Lunaire" by Schönberg) in German (Beaudelaire...) the music is quite outstanding.
Really independent music - for example Andreas Altenfelder's trumpet work on track 5 or Manfred Schulze's bariton sax musings which are always insistent but never hermetic.
Manfred Schulze who was the founder of the M.S. Bläser Quintet has died 2010. From 1992 he was forced to abandon music because of a grave disease.
Hermann Keller died in 2018 - among his activities/groups is the Berliner Improvisations Trio/Quartet with Antje Messerschmidt (violin and viola), Jürgen Kupke (clarinets) and Ulrich Weber on trumpet and fluegelhorn.
Andreas Altenfelder was playing with the Willem Breuker Kollektiev for more than 20 years. Only recently a recording of his own group has been released for the first time.
Wilfried Staufenbiel has played with Hermann Keller later as well ("apart" from singing and leading a choir) . Keller, Staufenbiel with Ulrich Weber (tp) continued the group as a trio until Keller's demise in 2018.
This is the Amiga lp plus two more...
Manfred Schulze, baritone saxophone, clarinet
Hermann Keller, piano, vocals
Andreas Altenfelder, trumpet, vocals, flute
Wilfried Staufenbiel, cello, vocals
1. Nocturno 9:19
2. Die Augen Der Armen (Canon-Chaconne-Fantasie) 11:26
3. Ex Tempore IV (Thema Und Variationen) 10:35
4. Ostinato 9:28
Recorded 19./20.07.1979 at Amiga-Studios, Berli.
AMIGA 8 55 717(vinyl rip)
plus:
5. Sieben Viertel 08:59
Berlin, 12. August 1979
(from the Double-LP "SNAPSHOT/Jazz aus der DDR" - FMP) (vinyl rip)
6. Ein Abschied Für Jazzensemble 08:08
New Jazz Festival Moers 3rd June, 1979 (released 2008 - deleted)
(from the CD-Box "Musik in Deutschland - Jazz - Neue Musik im Jazz; Sony Music)
This are the complete issued recordings by this singular group/line-up.
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10 comments:
Thank you again. This material is really helpful. My perspective was distored by the "iron curtin" effect when these were released. FMP released some items by East German players. But sadly they are out of print.
There are some reissues from the old FMP catalogue.
The label Jazzwerkstatt has reissued two Ulrich Gumpert Workshop Ensmbles as a double CD ith original covers.
Plus they have released some concerts from the small city Peitz where there was a annual Free Jazz Festival.
http://www.records-cd.com/product_info.php/info/p4613140_Ulrich-Gumpert-Workshop-Band-2.html
plus for the Peitz releases:
http://www.records-cd.com/product_info.php/info/p4639942_Peitzer-Grand-mit-Vieren.html
http://www.records-cd.com/product_info.php/info/p4613309_Ein-Nachmittag-in-Peitz.html
Both are worth checking out and off course the recordings from Ulrich Gumpert.
They even have new recordings from Gumpert and some other fine recordings.
Schulz was a big influence on the ROVA saxophone quartet. The first time I saw this LP was in Baritone player Jon Raskin's studio and he even had an orginal of one of the little figures on the cover, I guess Schultz made them.
I picked it up a few years later. Amiga has some amazing LPs. Thanks for this!!
That's interesting - Manfred Schulze's "Bläser-Quintett" as influence for ROVA - it makes sense.
Manfred Schulze was also accomplished in making sculptures and graphics and as a painter.
I know that he made the small sculptures on the cover and some others as can be seen on this website:
http://www.manfred-schulze.de/manfred_schulze_malerei.html
Wonderful Music , as have been all the posts ... thank you so much for sharing all of this more widely, and perhaps hopefully , some of these things may in future get a decent re release..
this one is fantastic , even Manfred Schultz is barely just a name to me, and most of us outside central Europe i suspect.
what a splendid feast!
M
Thanks for this great sax player music.
Unfortunately it is very unlikely that it will be (ever?) reissued.
The catalogue of Amiga belongs now to Sony/BMG.
After the wall came down, Amiga was completely given to BMG.(I think for one buck or something similar). They issued some pop songs and very little Jazz. Off course no "Avantgarde" - oh no.
Now the archive is stored in some remote little town near the former borderline.
The last manager of Amiga had to help to "liquidate" it.
But hope never dies.
I posted the Interjazz 4 - Good old circus - a while back. My copy was a Supraphon release, out of then Czechoslovakia. Someone made the point that it was also out on Amiga in DDR (and on FMP in BRD).
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