Milan Svoboda returns for the Interjazz series, no. 5 (1986)

After that detour or two, wonderful as it was, we go back to the scheduled series from before.

Obviously, I got this on the strength and reputation of Milan Svoboda.  I raved about his April Orchestra 32, which should still be up, and then he appeared with the Prague and Czech jazz orchestras.  I'm pretty sure I posted those before too.  Note that he studied at the famous Berklee in Boston, mentioned frequently in these posts.

Information can be found here.  Note the involvement of Karel Ruzicka (track B2) who was featured here before, and Namyslowski (track A3), who was here before too.

Tracklist:
A1 Pocta Panu G. E. / Tribute To G. E. (Milan Svoboda)
A2 Z Tlusté Roury / Out Of The Thick Pipe (Wróblewski)
A3 Krakovský Jazzový Festival / The Cracow Jazz Festival (J. Śmietana)
B1 Koňský Mol / Horse Moth (Wróblewski)
B2 Habanera ( Karel Růžička)
B3 Velese, Jen Vesele Con Funebrio / With Joy Unbounded, Con Funebrio (Svoboda)

Maybe the best composition is the one by Wroblewski, who made a few good fusion or jazz records in the 70s worth seeking out, the one called Out of the Thick Pipe:

Joachim Kuhn's Don't Stop Me Now, By Request

Check out the photo on the back!!  Don't you all miss those hair-days?

I guess everyone knows him, I've mentioned his name many times and his masterpiece cinemascope, and posted some of his less-known works in pnf days.

Mostly commercialese, but there is one half-interesting track called Summerset, note the slightly non-radio-friendly progressions in middle and end:

Claus Ogerman, Part Two, some more of his albums as arranger

I guess this is why I do this blog-- so people can give me recommendations I would never, ever have thought of.  I was shocked that other people were even familiar with Ogerman, but even more thrown off by the commenter who recommended I read the long and discursive blog post dedicated to him, to be found here on this page, which absolutely nailed it, in many ways.  Every album I love was referenced there, including the Evans collaboration Symbiosis, Gate of Dreams, the Brecker City Scape, Streisand, Oscar Peterson, and then more even that I wasn't aware of.  I guess everyone with a passing familiarity to jazz knows Jobim mostly today due to his constant appearance in those nuisance jazz standards that keep showing up at jazz festivals every summer in your local city (The Girl from Ipanema), what I had never realized was that my favourite Jobim album and to me his masterpiece, a 1976 opus called Urubu, was arranged by Ogerman!! So I dug it up to post it because it really belongs with the other works from him.  Jobim of course was way too popular a songwriter to come up with progressive music, I mean he never needed to right, but on the second side of this collaboration, the musical world absolutely goes straight up to heaven in a ramjet-fuelled, teraton-powered, billionaire-financed, space-z rocketship that belongs in the museum of godhead eternity as far as I'm concerned-- just consider the compositional acheivement of the Arquitetura de Morar (surprisingly to me this means architecture to live, not die, though the latter would have seemed more poetic):





Music cannot possibly, ever, get more beautiful than that, as far as I'm concerned.  The whole of the second side is similar, the blogspot mentioned Saudade do Brasil as remarkable too.

At the risk of getting into trouble I'll quote from the blogpost, written by Steven Cerra, in part, regarding some of the albums here and in the prior post, with some editoral comments from myself:

In 1969, Claus wrote an album for Oscar Peterson titled Motions and Emotions on the MPS label. Some of it's good, some of it's commercial, and some of it is knockout, above all the chart and performance of the Jobim tune Wave. The chart is, as one might expect, exquisite, but particularly noteworthy is the extended ending, and the way Claus can build incredible tensions with rising ostinatos. It is stunning writing, and the extended closing passage an indication of an emerging method in his compositional techniques.

[Ed. It's true the ending of Wave that old chronic failing kidneysed wrinkled standard is fantastic with the churning orchestral sounds, but the real standout brilliant arrangement is Dreamsville-- check that one song out for the most stunning piano + orchestra ever written.]

In the 1977 album Amoroso that Claus wrote for Joao Gilberto, one finds the Italian song Estate, which means "summer." The arrangement is almost unbearably poignant. That one recording launched the tune as an international jazz standard. Then in 1979, Claus wrote Terra Brasilis (Warner Brothers) for Jobim. The album (containing another of the tunes I wrote with Jobim, Double Rainbow), came out in 1980.

[Ed. This was a bit more disappointing compared to Uluru.]

After that, Claus arranged and orchestrated only his own music, including Cityscape, featuring tenor saxophonist Michael Brecker, in 1982. In 1989 they collaborated again on Claus Ogerman featuring Michael Brecker.

But let us back up to 1976. That was the year of an album on Warner Bros entirely of Claus's compositions, a suite titled Gate of Dreams. It is marvelous, haunting, brooding, expressing that poignant Prussian melancholy that I think is the core of Claus's work. Bill Evans called the suite "a reminder of finer things." And so it is. But it presents problems to those who want to put things in labeled shoe-boxes as "classical" or "jazz" or "pops" because Claus draws on all these idioms. It's simply gorgeous, with the writing reflecting all his musical experience up to that time. And it is the shape of things to come in Claus's writing. The Gramophone critic who in 1988 couldn't find out who Claus was wrote of the Tagore Lieder. "I can only report that these seven songs are in a loose post-serial idiom." He got that right, and also the perception of their "sparse, tonal lyricism."

The post is incredibly detailed in its in-depth knowledge of everything Ogerman has written, including the first album with Evans, with Symphony Orchestra, all the way through to the Lyrical Works.  The only thing missing to me is mention of the awesomely heart-breaking song I Loved You.  I guess also the song I raved about earlier called This Dream (on the Freddie Hubbard collaboration).
I would also reiterate (which he did) that the streak of melancholy and philosophy that travels through his music seems to emanate from his roots in middle-Europe.

To my utter surprise this commenter mentioned also the following album, with Danilo Perez, called Across the Crystal Sea.  (Not mentioned in the blogspot, I think?)
I say this of course because the music is classic, 100 percent, unadulterated, no sugar added, Claus Ogerman, you can see he wrote 6 out of 8 songs on there, often based on themes from classical or other composers.  If you don't believe me, listen to the last and phenomenalest track:





His situation also reminds me of Teo Macero, another formidable arranger with huge successes in the jazz world who was capable of remarkable modern composition as well, compositions that for the most part are neglected and forgotten today.  I've featured so much from him on these pages too.  Obviously, the personality was totally different, with Teo fully in the jazz world and the excitement of fusion.

Starting the Czech Interjazz Series with 1 (1970), 3 (1976), 4 (1979)

Another interesting VA in a series expansively covering from 1970 onwards and upwards to the later 1980s, with some of the most famous Czech artists we've heard many times before on these pages, such as Stivin (who was in Jazz Q), Dasek (who played with Jazz Cellula), Svoboda (I raved about that April Orchestra he was featured in), etc.  A possibly incomplete listing appears here.

The first album is quite basic big band, the 2nd simplicity itself, the fourth free jazz.  The third though is interesting, and has both Brom's Orchestra on side b (which is why I came upon this) and the JOCR I featured before (for ex., here) on side a.  All and complete infos here.   The third track, with the title of Produkt Uboczy:

A review of most of Claus Ogerman's stuff with the unprecedented Chorlieder, from 1985

I was looking through the voluminous discography of Claus Ogerman again as I often do when I noticed there was an interesting classical composition called Chorlieder which was unavailable, so I bought it on the assumption it might be more approachable.  It wasn't, but that's OK, it's always worth the search.  It's actually purely a cappella music with no orchestra, no musical instruments but the human voice.  So that's annoying (as any married person well knows).  I've mentioned him before in the context of the similar Colombier recently, but really there's no arranger quite like this man, he's incomparable.  His gift is to create really original arrangements out of sometimes really ordinary jazz standards or well-known classical pieces.  I also brought him up when I talked about the 'jazz with strings' stuff, with his collaboration with Freddie Hubbard, his composition called This Dream. Links for all those might be down, I will reup if anyone asks, no problem.

In the beginning, back in my college days, I was familiar with the Bill Evans album with symphony orchestra where he brings his talents to rearrange some old classical melodies like Faure's Prelude, but on that work there are also some really surprisingly progressive compositions, for ex. his Elegie:




On the other hand, in 1974's Symbiosis, Evans plays piano in a wonderful concerto-style composition with 5 movements.  I loved that so much I played parts of it at my wedding, in the church.  No one liked it.  Except me, and maybe the bats in the roof.  But it's amazing.  So yes, me and Claus go back a long ways, and we're real tight.  The work gets resurrected for the later albums, the Concerto I included too, and the Lyrical Works CD that came out much later.

Collaborations with Barbara Streisand (yeah, her!!) and Akkerman are equally shocking for those who like me grew up with classical music and so expect nothing but drivel and the same boring chords from that style of music.  I'm going to draw your attention to the incredibly meditative, delicate, and tender way she sings a song from the famous Orff Carmina Burana:





Which is so hard to imagine for her.

But it's in the 1976 work Gate of Dreams, which I think was presented first as music for ballet, that he really made his masterpiece.  It absolutely blew me away when I first heard it as a university student, and it still blows me away.  It's one of those albums everyone should really know, but doesn't.  Again he recycled components from it in later albums like Lyrical Works.  Time passed Autumn part 3:




In my life I don't expect to hear any more compositions as beautiful as that one, ever.

The two albums he made with Michael Brecker were also really good, sentimental, warm, progressive, but solid throughout.  Then more recently I decided to listen to the Lyrical Works CD and I was shocked to find the song called "I loved You" which is a poem by a Russian writer--I forget who-- he set to music.  In fact that song was probably written for Streisand in the classical album she made.  But the way it's sung with the orchestral backing absolutely sends me to heaven:





Here the genius of the song is the simplicity of the melody coupled with the deep yearning and aching pain of the lyrics (I hope you find someone who loves you as much as I loved you) sung over an ever-shifting series of chords mostly diatonic that become difficult to hang on, being so oddly original, sounding a bit like she's standing on waves.  The Streisand version is just singing on top of piano, presumably played by Ogerman and is useful as it allows you to delineate the chords more clearly.  One of the best songs I've heard in the last decade, hands down.  Tragically unknown.

So there you go.  One of my favourite composers of all time, just wanted to complete some of his discography with the Chorlieder.  I should add there is a lot of dreck in his output too, commercial stuff he put out with ordinary easy listening or jazz.  I had to wade through a lot of that to get to these gems.
Also the collaboration with Oscar Peterson was fantastic, as I recall.