Günther Fischer-Quintett's Kombination from the GDR, 1978 [lossless, new fresh vinyl rip]

Wow.  This is the kind of high-powered fusion I love and revere and miss so desperately whenever I visit those local jazz festivals at which middle-aged or old folks try to scat and swing and invariably get up to start dancing in the aisles in a most caricatural manner, spilling a drink or two on me (like their alka-seltzer).  Not only their dancing style but their fashion sense of course provides us with endless amusement, at least, those of us who are younger than 40, who might number only in the dozen however amongst an attendance level in the tens of thousands.  Cf. my commentary here, about the local festival in my city which I long ago abandoned, particularly since their choice of music invariably becomes more conservative and old-fashioned, time-travel-like, alzheimerly as the years go by, the same stupid standards reappearing each time, as if they had no memory of the past-- I am reminded of Oliver Sacks' case studies of those who have a stroke and are unable to form long-term memories, and by long-term we mean any memory older than a minute or so: these same jazz fans seem completely unable to recall they have heard "Summertime" already in their lives so many times, acting as if it's a brand-new piece of music.  But among all crimes against humanity there is nothing worse than when some fat old octogenarian gets up and starts getting into "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing, doo-wop--doo-wop etc. etc." at which point I begin to vomit spasmodically-- admittedly, partly because I had far too many beers already to drown out the pain of this feculent audio, but I mean, let's get real-- said old lady was probably a baby when that song was written back in the days of war rations when you had to forcibly extract your mercury dental fillings to help the wartime effort for rectal thermometers and people were forced to buy copper pennies for a few dollars from the government to smelt into wiring to use in B-52 bombers' electric connections so there'd be no problems, other than a millisecond's pang of guilt, in dropping A-bombs with inappropriate names on foreigners-- I've mentioned before how much I hate swing but even more so I hate dixieland jazz with its retarded simplicity, its insistent pentatonic badgering or rather hammering over the same neuronal synapses-- imagine if you were forced like a schoolchild to rewrite over and over the same phrase, "I will not listen to any decent music" over and over again, that's what dixie jazz is like, I'm sorry Woody Allen, but both pedophilia and dixieland are not my cup of ovaltine...

But this album is not that kind of jazz.  It's inventive, interesting, exciting, and even has some Terry Riley/Soft Machine elements to it... So please enjoy this crystal-clear and brand new rip!