Fourmenonly (Herbert Joos), Michael Gibbs, Jim Hall, Volker Kriegel in the 1973 NDR Jazzworkshop

The number of luminaries here is quite astonishing as can be said by the tags next door to the right, but plus that, all of the following appear: Michael Naura, John Taylor, Peter Giger, Eberhard Weber, Stan Sulzmann, Kenny Wheeler, Norma Winstone, et al.  Think of how many of these artists, perhaps all of them, have appeared in some album or another featured on this blog!!

Herbert Joos and Fourmenonly have a track written by the former called Count Down. It's a free jazz piece and will appeal to those who have a taste for that inchoate genre.  Certainly the Daybreak album from his was a huge fan favourite here on this blog.

Michael Gibbs is one artist not previously mentioned whose work I've loved dearly due to its highly well written nature, particularly in Chrome Waterfall Orchestra and In the Public Interest.  Or let's not forget the formidable work Just Ahead from 1972's Mike Gibbs Band, an album I've listened to all my life and keep on discovering more beauty in.  (Unfortunately the other mid-70s album which was a homage to Shakespeare called Will's Power was quite disappointing for me).  (I can post all the Mike Gibbs albums if there's interest.)  He presents us here with three pieces, the first of which is the gorgeous Mother of the Dead Man by Carla Bley, which appeared earlier in the aforementioned live Just Ahead.  The other two are his own compositions called Just A Head [sic] and Fanfare, which first appeared in Tanglewood 63, not a bad album, though not comparable to the previously mentioned 70s masterpieces.

As usual, there is a throwaway jazz number which is the Jim Hall Group's Body and Soul interpretation, and equally as usual, I have to write the same comments about the sheer excruciating boringness of ordinary jazz standards, the nightmare of having to hear them millions of times in one's lifetime, like Paul McCartney's grotesque Yesterday, etc., etc.

Then this nice big thanksgiving dinner closes out with the beautiful Volker Kriegel group and a composition by Eberhard Weber called Electric Blue-- not quite as strong a dessert as one would have liked unfortunately, since it turns into a very mushy free-for-all improvisation after about the two minute mark-- making the proportion of written material to wanker material about 1 to 100.  And it's 18 minutes and 40 seconds long!!


FULL CREDITS AND SAMPLE:

A1 Fourmenonly - Count Down [Comp. by Herbert Joos]

Bass Clarinet, Flute – Wilfried Eichhorn
Drums, Flute – Rudi Theilmann
Engineer – Hans-Heinrich Breitkreuz
Piano, Flute – Helmut Zimmer

A2 Michael Gibbs Orchestra - Mother Of The Dead Man [by Carla Bley]





A3 Michael Gibbs Orchestra - Just A Head [by Mike Gibbs]

A4 Michael Gibbs Orchestra - Fanfare [by Mike Gibbs]

A2 to A4 Credits
Bass Guitar – Roy Babbington (tracks: A2 to A4)
Bass Trombone – Geoff Perkins (tracks: A2 to A4)
Concert Grand Piano – Dave MacRae (tracks: A2 to A4)
Conductor – Michael Gibbs (tracks: A2 to A4)
Drums – John Marshall (tracks: A2 to A4)
Engineer – Werner Münchmeyer (tracks: A2 to A4)
Piano, Organ – John Taylor (2) (tracks: A2 to A4)
Producer – Michael Naura
Production Manager – Karl-Heinz Schlüter
Saxophone, Flute – Brian Smith (tracks: A2 to A4), Ray Warleigh (tracks: A2 to A4), Stan Sulzmann (tracks: A2 to A4)
Trombone – Chris Pyne (tracks: A2 to A4)
Trumpet, Flugelhorn – Henry Lowther (tracks: A2 to A4), Kenny Wheeler (tracks: A2 to A4)
Vibraphone, Percussion – Frank Ricotti (tracks: A2 to A4)
Vocals – Norma Winstone (tracks: A2 to A4)


B1 Jim Hall Workshop Group - Body And Soul [comp. by who cares?]
Bass – Red Mitchell
Drums – Daniel Humair
Engineer – Günter Simon
Guitar – Jim Hall

B2 Volker Kriegel Workshop Group - Electric Blue [comp. by Eberhard Weber]
Cello – Peter Warren
Bass – Eberhard Weber
Drums – Joe Nay
Engineer – Hans-Heinrich Breitkreuz
Guitar – Volker Kriegel
Percussion – Peter Giger
Piano – John Taylor (2)
Saxophone, Piccolo Flute – Stan Sulzmann
Violin – Zbigniew Seifert

Zbigniew Seifert's Passion, 1972 to 1979

From wiki:

Zbigniew Seifert (7 June 1946 – 15 February 1979) was a Polish jazz violinist.

Seifert was born in Kraków, Poland in 1946. He played alto saxophone early in his career and was strongly influenced by John Coltrane. He devoted himself to jazz violin when he started performing with the Tomasz Stańko Quintet in 1970 and became one of the leading modern jazz violinists before he died of cancer at the age of 32.

Have a look at the discography, note his involvement on some of the most seminal and ingenious progressive fusion albums including Dauner's Kunstkopfindianer, Kriegel's Lift, Kuhn's Cinemascope (and Springfever), Mariano's Helen 12 Trees, all of which everyone reading this should be familiar with.

When I reviewed his sadly shortened output I realized I didn't have some of the albums after I got turned off by the overlengthy Kilimanjaro from 1979 and the blandness of Man of the Light (1977) which is for some reason the most well-known of his works.  In particular this one, called Passion, also released the year of his passing, which perhaps should be regarded as a requiem for him, threw me off the chair, as I love to say.  Once again teaching us that we must attempt to complete these discographies.

His Singing Dunes, a modern composition that equals anything I've ever heard in the European classical canon of concert halls, should be his eulogy:

Which is followed but not eclipsed by the equally brilliant compositions Quo Vadis and Escape from the sun...
It should be mentioned that all the arrangement and composition is handled by Zbiggy.
Btw Chris Hinze has a production credit.

The track Laverne from the bottom LP approaches the masterpiece level of Passion:





Unfortunately I didn't find too much else of note in that record, nor in the others posted, setting aside of course his involvement as guest artist on Oregon's amazing 1978 Violin.  There are probably a couple I missed here too, like this one which scared me off.

A man who was at the top of his game, suddenly cut off from his genius by an unfortunate diagnosis-- truly tragic.

I'll remember Zbiggy, indeed...