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THE ANDRZEJ TRZASKOWSKi QUiNTET (Polskie Nagrania 1965)

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Onxidlib suggested to post this OOP album, and he is right. It is very lively music, close to Krzystof Komeda's legendary work.


Tomasz Stanko – trumpet
Janusz Muniak – soprano and alto sax
Andrzej Trzaskowski – piano
Jacek Ostaszewski – bass
Adam Jedrzejowski – drums

1. Requiem dla Scotta La Faro / Requiem For Scotty [2:47]
2. Synopsis (Expression I, Expression II, Impression) [18:13]
3. Ballada z silverowska kadencja / A Ballad With Cadence In Horace Silver's Style [1:43]
4. Sinobrody / Bluebeard [10:22]
5. Post Scriptum [2:44]
6. Wariacja jazzowa na temat 'Chmiela' / 'The Hop' - Jazz Variation On A Polish Folk Melody [11:05]


Polish Jazz vol. 4 / CD Polskie Radio PRCD 535
Recorded in Warsaw, January 20-22, 1965 (tracks 1-4), February 18, 1965 (tracks 5-6).


HALKI'S COLLECTIVE "JIVE" (LARISSA IMPROVISER'S GUILD, 1981/82)

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One more contribution from Alex in Solex.
The b/w picture is from the tape-only release.  The broken-down but still jaunty couple is a creation from Alex.
Alex - Thanks again!!


Vasilis Sitras,  tenor saxophone, clarinet, soprano recorder, percussions, acoustic bass strings, wood clarinets, harp, tambourine, sheet iron
George Kostoulis, electric bass, acoustic bass, percussions, wood clarinets, sheet iron, psaltery
Hristos Papageorgiou, electric guitar, violin, trombone, clarinet, wood flutes & clarinets, soprano recorder, sanza, percussion, tambourine, vina, sheet iron
Sakis Griboulis, drums, xylophone, bells,  percussion
N. Kostoulis, various percussion, tambourine, wood flute, band photo

Recorded in an warehouse  at HALKI (a village ca. 1500 inhabitants, near Larissa)  between 23 Dec 1981 & 2 Jan 1982.

Produced by Larissa Improvisers Guild
Improvisation series , 1982 Halki (tape rip)

GERD DUDEK QUARTET - LEICESTER 1998 (SET 1)

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GERD DUDEK - tenor and soprano saxophones
JOHN PARRICELLI - guitar
CHRIS LAURENCE - bass
TONY LEVIN - drums

First set

1. S'matter  11:36
2. Mabel  9:24
3. Naima  15:01
4. By George 13:07


Y Theatre, Leicester  19th February 1998

KAZUTOKI UMEZU - DOKU UME BAND PLAYS "DELUXE" AT SAGAE (SHODUKU RECORDS, 1981)

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A1. Take No Mura
A2. Bamboo Village
A3. Nurse For Me

B.  Pretty Kranke


Kazutoki Umezu, saxophones
Hiraoki Katayama, saxophones
Takeharu Hayakawa, bass, percussion
Takashi Kikuchi, drums, trombone

Recorded live at Sagae, Yamagata, 1981

Shoduku Records - FRS-246

Vinyl Rip

HOPPER / DEAN / TiPPETT / GALLiVAN - Live in Paris 1977

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Paris, Theatre Campagne, 1977-04-22

Elton Dean, as, saxello
Keith Tippett, p
Hugh Hopper, bg
Joe Gallivan, dr , moog synth

1 unknown title 10:35
2 Seven Drones 11:17
3 Naima (fade-out) 8:44
4 unknown title 11:01
5 Gallivan solo > Gualchos theme ? 9:07
6 unknown title 10:15

Lineage: aud > cdr trade > flac > dime

61:01, Sound Rating: Sound Board A-

UPLOADED BY JAZZRITA 09-07-18, remastered July 2o14 by miloo2

***

This recording was previously shared as Hugh Hopper Quartet on IS contributions section. I think Elton is playing excellently here. I did what I can with improving muddy sound of this recording. Sadly, Keith's piano is underamplified, so we will probably never hear it as we want, but in the end it sounds surprisingly good to me. And more surprisingly, theme at the end of track 5 seems to me like being Gualchos from EDQ Silent Knowledge 1995 album!

I would also like to remind two albums that quartet made: 1976 Cruel But Fair on Compendium label (reissued on CD by One Way Records, now probably OOP) and 1977 Mercy Dash, which remained unsissued until 1985 release on Culture Press (which made also first CD reissue, second is out now by Gonzo Multimedia).

DEUTSCHES JAZZ FESTIVAL - BOWIE/DAUNER/DOLDINGER/KROG/PIKE/SCHOOF/WOODS "FRANKFURT, 1970"

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Here is finally the promised post from the German Jazz Festival 1970 in Frankfurt.
The above picture is courtesy of the Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive) and shows the Kongresshalle in progress...
This would become the location for many concerts during the next next six decades - up to now.

LESTER BOWIE & EUROPEAN FREE JAZZ ORCHESTRA  "FRANKFURT, 1970"

Lester Bowie, trumpet & fluegelhorn
Joseph Jarman, tenor saxophone
Roscoe Mitchell, bass saxophone
Malachi Favors Maghostut, bass
Frédéric Rabold, pocket trumpet
Michael Sell, trumpet
Herbert Joos, fluegelhorn
Manfred Schoof, trumpet
Paul Rutherford, trombone
Albert Mangelsdorff, trombone
Günter Christmann, trombone
Dieter Scherf, alto saxophone
Michael Thielepape, alto saxophone
Joachim Kühn, alto saxophone
Axel Hennies, tenor saxophone & flute
Gunter Hampel, bass clarinet
Alfred Harth, tenor saxophone
Heinz Sauer, tenor saxophone
Gerd Dudek, tenor saxophone
Klaus Bühler, bass
Peter Stock, bass
Gerhard König, guitar
Rainer Grimm, drums
Karin Krog, vocals
Jeanne Lee, vocals
Joachim-Ernst Berendt, announcement


1. introduction (Joachim-Ernst Berendt)     1:50
2. Getting to Know You All No. 2 (L. Bowie) (Germany Unite!)     35:26

Bowie introduces the tune for the first 1:40.
Solos: Bowie, Christmann, Mitchell, Krog (L)-Lee(R)

Recorded on March 22, 1970 at the Kongresshalle, Frankfurt during the 12th Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970, third concert.

An excerpt has been issued on LP (Born Free: The 12. German Jazz Festival, CBS Scout Sc-S 11).

RADIO JAZZ GROUP STUTTGART - WOLFGANG DAUNER  "FRANKFURT, 1970"

Ack Van Rooyen, trumpet & fluegelhorn
Erhard "Ed" Kröger, trombone
Peter Herbolzheimer, trombone
Walter "Joki" Freund, soprano & tenor saxophone
Gerd Dudek, tenor saxophone, flute
Wolfgang Dauner, piano, clavinet, ring modulator
Eberhard Weber, bass
Cees See, drums

Joachim-Ernst Berendt, announcement

1. announcement (Joachim-Ernst Berendt) 1:34
2. Bluesy Bluesy (W. Dauner)     11:02
3. The Peddler (J. Freund)     16:05
4. Reaping Machine (W. Dauner)     5:42
5. Diäthylaminoäthyl (W. Dauner) 11:52


Recorded on March 21, 1970, Kongresshalle, Frankfurt, 12th Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970, first concert.

 KLAUS DOLDINGER QUARTET  "FRANKFURT, 1970"

Klaus Doldinger, soprano & tenor saxophone
Ingfried Hoffmann, piano, organ
Helmut Kandelberger, abss
Cees See, drums

Joachim-Ernst Berendt, announcement

1. introduction (Joachim-Ernst Berendt)     1:25
2. The Windmills of Your Mind (M. Legrand-A. Bergman)     8:45
3. Sahara (K. Doldinger)  17:27

Recorded on March 21, 1970 at the Kongresshalle, Frankfurt, 12th Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970, first concert.

An excerpt of "Sahara" (9:17) has been issued on LP (Born Free: The 12. German Jazz Festival, CBS Scout Sc-S 11).

KARIN KROG + DAVE PIKE SET  "FRANKFURT, 1970"


Dave Pike, vibes
Volker Kriegel, guitar
Hans Rettenbacher, bass
Peter Baumeister, drums
Albert Mangelsdorff, trombone
Karin Krog, vocals

Joachim-Ernst Berendt, announcement

1. introduction (Joachim-Ernst Berendt)     1:23
2. One for Kathy (D. Pike)     6:37
3. Green Light (D. Pike)     4:31
4. Announcement (Joachim-Ernst Berendt)     0:15

Recorded on March 21, 1970, Frankfurt, 12th Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970, first concert.

DAVE PIKE SET  "FRANKFURT, 1970"

Dave Pike, vibes
Volker Kriegel, guitar
Hans Rettenbacher, bass
Peter Baumeister, drums

Joachim-Ernst Berendt, announcement

1. introduction (Joachim-Ernst Berendt)     1:04
2. Attack of the Green Misers (D. Pike)     9:12
3. Turn Around, Mrs. Lot (D. Pike)     9:20
4. But Anyway - Velvet Vibrations (V. Kriegel)     5:44
5. Good Time Charlie at the Big Washdown (H. Rettenbacher)     8:34

Recorded on March 21, 1970 at the Kongresshalle, Frankfurt, 12th Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970, first concert.

"Turn Around, Mrs. Lot" has been issued on LP (Born Free: The 12. German Jazz Festival, CBS Scout Sc-S 11).

MANFRED SCHOOF NEW JAZZ TRIO  "FRANKFURT, 1970"


Manfred Schoof, trumpet & fluegelhorn
Peter Trunk, bass
Cees See, drums

Joachim-Ernst Berendt, announcement

1. introduction (Joachim-Ernst Berendt) 0:36
2. Certvann (M. Schoof-P. Trunk-C. See) 7:35
3. Palar (M. Schoof-P. Trunk-C. See)     6:31
4. Haranca (M. Schoof-P. Trunk-C. See)     6:05

Recorded on March 22, 1970 at the Kongresshalle, Frankfurt, 12th Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970, third concert.
This is announced as a four-part suite called "Page One," but the recording I have has only these three parts. The titles of the tunes are not announced, but they're taken from a NDR broadcast of a concert from Hamburg on January 23.
An excerpt of "Haranca" (5:31, with the title "Satz") has been issued on LP (Born Free: The 12. German Jazz Festival, CBS Scout Sc-S 11).

PHIL WOODS & HIS EUROPEAN RHYTHM MACHINE  "FRANKFURT, 1970"

Phil Woods, alto saxophone
Gordon Beckpiano, electric piano
Henri Texier, bass
Daniel Humair, drums, percussion

1. unknown title (inc)     4:04
2. Freedom Jazz Dance (E. Harris)  11:58

Recorded on March 21, 1970 at the Kongresshalle, Frankfurt, 12th Deutsches Jazzfestival 1970, first concert.
The Woods ERM undoubtedly performed additional music, but these are the only one I have.
"Freedom Jazz Dance" has been issued on LP (Born Free: The 12. German Jazz Festival, CBS Scout Sc-S 11).

Thanks to Peter Losin for the music and the info-files which I have changed a bit.



PAUL DUNMALL / TONY ORRELL - ETCHINGS (DLE DVD01) NO DOWNLOAD

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For completeness but not for download.

Paul Dunmall - saxello, tenor saxophone
Tony Orrell - drums, precorded backing track

On the day of the recording Tony Orrell found two video cameras in the studio and decided to record the day's session.  He put one camera facing himself on drums and the other facing me.  Unfortunately the camera on Tony didn't work properly but as an after thought he took the recording of myself and worked on it at home in real time through a Korg Entrancer and came up with this DVD.   We both decided it really worked well with the music.  Of course this music is all improvised except for the pre-recorded backing track that Tony put together.  The first  time I heard this backing music was actually as it was being played on the recording session, so I had no idea what was coming next.  I think it works out wonderfully well.

Paul Dunmall

Youtube:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

BRÖTZMANN - BREUKER QUARTET "LÜBECK, 1987"

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Peter Brötzmann, reeds
Willem Breuker, reeds
Jay Oliver, bass
Jim Meneses, drums

1. unknown title 30:19
2. unknown title 10:00

Recorded at Musikladen im Zentrum, Untertrave 97 in Lübeck, Germany on May 3, 1987.
For the series "5 Jahre Jazz im Zentrum".

Note: I got the cd-r with a sheet which claims Jim Nassis as the drummer.
But an acquaintance recalled Jim Meneses as the drummer.
Also I've never heard of Jim Nassis...

UPDATE: Went to Jim Meneses website and found that the bassist was Jay Oliver > here 
and here



PAUL DUNMALL / TONY ORRELL - ETCHINGS (audio from dvd)

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Back again with this.  I transferred the audio off the dvd to cdr (makes a nice rich sound).  Elton Dean had left us six months earlier, bequeathing his trusty saxello to Paul, and here there is some of Elton's sweetness.  I find this a very attractive recording.  Download away.  Enjoy.

PAUL DUNMALL, saxello, tenor saxophone
TONY ORRELL, drums, pre-recorded backing track

Etchings  46:40

Scene 1.  Itchings
Scene 2.  Rama-fications
Scene 3.  Soft
Scene 4.  El's bells
Scene 5.  Hair guitar
Scene 6.  Scratchings
Scene 7.  Sita-u-ations

Recorded UWE Bristol.  16 August 2006
Engineer: Stephen Allan
Etching by Paul Dunmall, coloured by Lynda Dunmall

TOSHIYUKI MIYAMA AND HIS NEW HERD ORCHESTRA - FOUR JAZZ COMPOSITIONS BASED ON JAPANESE CLASSICAL THEMES (TOSHIBA RECORDS, 1970)

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A1. Mumyoju (Masahiko Sato)

- Hideaki Sakura, koto

A2. Shirabyoshi (Hiroshi Takami)


B1. Ikisudama (Norio Maeda)


B2. Sensyuraku (Kozaburo Yamaki)



Recorded on 12-14 August 1970

Toshiba Records, TP-9010

Vinyl Rip

Prakash Maharaj & Friends (AMF 1989)

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Bass – David Friesen, Peter Sonntag
Congas, Steel Drums – Rudy Smith
Drums – Andrew Cyrille
Harmonium, Tanpura – Gunther Paust
Percussion – Dom Um Romao
Piano – Paul Schwarz
Sarod – Vikash Maharaj
Saxophone – Bernd Konrad
Saxophone, Flute – Lennart Aberg
Shanai – Dulare Hussain Khan
Sitar – Shivanath Mishra
Tabla – Prakash Maharaj
Vibraphone , Marimba – Tom Van Der Geld

A1 - Hinglaj    
A2 - Multicoloured Shades Pt. I    
A3 - Suriodaya (Sunrise)    
B1 - Multicoloured Shades Pt. II    
B2 - Megh    

Recorded live at three occasions:
A1: Recorded at "Donaueschinger Musiktage" October 19th, 1985.
A2 & B1: Recorded at MM-Studios, July 21, 1981.
A3 & B2: Recorded at "Kunstlerhaus" Munich, November 21 & 22, 1987.

AMF - Music - amf F 106, LP
1989
vinyl rip

KEITH TIPPETT / PAUL DUNMALL / CHRIS BOLTON / TONY LEVIN - BARTONS ARMS

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THE FRIENDLY FACE OF FREE IMPROVISATION.....

As Keith Tippett likes to call it 'spontaneous composition', and this really sounds like it.  I don't think I can think of a more musical group of doggedly determined free improvisers; making up tunes as they go along. There are moments of real beauty, real passion, real swing, real good old fun, and even reggae!  I hope you can enjoy this.

KEITH TIPPETT - piano
PAUL DUNMALL - baritone and soprano saxophones
CHRIS BOLTON - bass
TONY LEVIN - drums

1. 17:56
2. 20:19

Bartons Arms, Birmingham.  14 November 1986


  

TOSHINORI KONDO & TRISTAN HONSINGER "THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER" (ITM, 1987)

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Toshinori Kondo, trumpet, electronics, voice
Tristan Honsinger, cello, voices
Sean Bergin, saxes, melodica, voices
Tiziana Simona, vocals
Michael Moore, clarinet
Jean Jacques Avenel, bass
Steve Noble, drums


01. Talk     0:35
02. La Strada     4:26
03. Cello And Kondo     0:38
04. Television / Pineapplesass     4:11
05. Morehands     0:59
06. Crazy     2:43
07. Aveva Paura     2:33
08. Kate's Back     2:29
09. Jack's Field     2:28
10. Tell Me Another Story     1:46
11. La Rapina Della Scala     11:01

Recorded in Monster, Netherlands at Studio 44, 1 & 2 April, 1987.

Originally on ITM 0021 (LP) and ITM 971421 (CD)
BASIC 50007 (CD rip)

YANOMAMÖ SHAMANS "VENEZUELA, 1978" (excerpt)

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This is an excerpt of David Toop's recording from a Shamans group healing ceremony.
Recorded in November 1978 at the village Dayari-teri (not the one above) which is situated at the high Orinoco River some 600 kilometers from the Amazonas capitol of Purto Ayacucho.

Originally this recording was released on Toop's label Quartz Publications titled "Hekura - Yanomamö Shamanism From Southern Venezuela".
The excerpt stems from the now OOP CD "Ancient Light And The Blackcore" issued by Sub Rosa.

According to David Toop this is no music but techniques of the subworld. But it works as a purely sound-event nonetheless - at least for myself.

Here's the excerpt...



Jerome Cooper, Kalaparusha, Frank Lowe - Positions 3 6 9 (Kharma 1978)

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this is from our friend paul w, who supplied music and link

Jerome Cooper - Drums, Percussion [Gong Bell], Flute, Saw, Bike HornJerome Cooper
Kalaparusha - Tenor Saxophone, Clarinet, Flute, Bells
Frank Lowe - Tenor Saxophone, Percussion [Indian Bells, Whistle]

A1 - Movement AA     10:20
A2 - Movement A     8:04
A3 - Movement B     9:36
B1 - Movement C     8:38
B2 - Movement C2    
B3 - Movement D     15:20
C1 - Movement E     18:02
C2 - Movement F     5:48
D1 - Movement F (Cont.)     9:56
D2 - Movement G     18:00

Line-up:
A1: Duet - two tenors
A2: Trio
A3: Trio
B1: Solo - F. Lowe
B2: Trio
B3: Solo - Kalaparusha
C1: Duet - F. Lowe - J. Cooper
C2: Solo - J. Cooper
D1: Solo - J. Cooper
D2: Trio

Recorded live in concert at Environ, New York City, April 25, 1977.

Kharma ‎– PK 3/4
double vinyl, 1978

KEITH TIPPETT meets DAM. Band on the Wall. 1986

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KEITH TIPPETT - piano
PAUL DUNMALL - tenor saxophone
TONY MOORE - bass
DAVE ALEXANDER - drums

Set 1
1. 32:45
2. 6:18
3. 12:29

Set 2
1. 36:29
2. 14:15 inc

Band on the Wall, Manchester.  1986

Phew!

FMP - FREE MUSIC PRODUCTION @ destination-out/bandcamp-store

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It is my pleasure to alert you about the ongoing availability of the destination-out bandcamp-store.

The following uploads were added just recently:
- KARL BERGER "Interludes"
- BRÖTZMANN/VAN HOVE/BENNINK "Free Jazz und Kinder"
- MALFATTI/WITTWER "Thrumblin'"
- IRÈNE SCHWEIZER TRIO "Early Tapes"
- BRÖTZMANN/MILLER/MOHOLO "Opened But Hardly Touched"
- MANFRED SCHOOF QUINTETT "The Early Quintet"
- BRÖTZMANN/VAN HOVE/BENNINK plus MANGELSDORFF "Outspan No.1"
- BRÖTZMANN/VAN HOVE/BENNINK "Outspan No.2"

About 20 more are ready for adding to the store plus ten more albums are in the process of mastering.

With this exciting prospect I'll end this short announcement.

Here you go > http://destination-out.bandcamp.com/

Requests

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Requests, broken links, re-ups and related topics go here. It may be easier for admins to be attentive to these topics if they are put here and not under the individual posts. There's no guarantee that we may be able to respond to everything, but we'll give it a try.

I've deleted the previous 'Requests' post as it was becoming a bit unwieldy.
I shall start the requests with the last one from the previous thread.

FRANÇOIS TUSQUES - LE NOUVEAU JAZZ (MOULOUDJI, 1967)

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an update of an early post

hello all,
this time, once again courtesy of 'boromir' another incredibly super rare album.
on the legendary french mouloujdi label.
francois tusques was one of he european pioneers of the genre, who made the transition from a more conventional jazz language sometime in the early 60's.
here is an article from the incredibly useful all about jazz site.
Francois Tusques et le Nouveau Jazz Francais
Published: January 10, 2006

By Clifford Allen
It is somewhat ironic that, as much as European jazz and free improvisation are nestled squarely within the canon of contemporary music—one has to look only at the worldwide recognition of figures like Germany’s Peter Brötzmann, England’s Evan Parker, or Holland’s Misha Mengelberg and their respective integral scenes—the country with the closest ties to vanguard American jazz in the ‘60s has been almost wholly left out of the picture. France has produced several world-renowned improvisers (for example, clarinetists Michel Portal and Louis Sclavis are among the instrument’s greatest proponents), but the architects of France’s ‘new thing’ have been summarily left by the wayside over the course of the music’s history. Pianist and composer François Tusques, while almost unknown outside his native France, is certainly among the rare few in European jazz, not only as a crucial figure in the development of the music in his sector of the continent, but so crucial that he was able to record the first true French free jazz record (Free Jazz, reissued by In Situ)—a claim which, Stateside, is not even Ornette Coleman’s.
Born in 1938 in Paris, Tusques migrated with his family to rural Brittany shortly thereafter, though as his father was a crucial figure in the French Resistance, François and his family moved around quite a bit during and after the War, eventually spending two years in Afghanistan and another two in Dakar before returning to France. As the potential for danger at being ‘outed’ as a member the Resistance was so high, Tusques did not attend any French schools at the time, for fear that he would accidentally divulge his father’s secret to his peers.

This secretiveness, on top of the fact that his family was so mobile, contributed to a difficult childhood, and despite the fact that his mother was an opera singer, poverty and circumstance kept Tusques from beginning musical training until he was eighteen, when he began to study the piano. “I had only one week of lessons; after that, I was on my own—you could say an ‘autodidact.’ I learned to play mostly by ear, especially from the drummers.”

Tusques quickly took to jazz—his worldliness certainly offering exposure to sounds that he would not have heard otherwise during the War—and counts among his early favorites Bud Powell and Rene Urtreger, not to mention subsequent affinities for Cecil Taylor (“but I am not a technical pianist…” says Tusques), Mal Waldron, Monk and Jaki Byard. At the start of the 60s, there was a significant scene of American expatriate improvisers in Paris—Bud, Dexter Gordon, Kenny Clarke, and traditionalists like Bechet—and a handful of young French players ready and willing to sit in, like saxophonist Barney Wilen and bassist Pierre Michelot. Certainly, as in England and elsewhere in Europe, French jazz of this nascent period was almost entirely beholden to the American post-bop model, and quite a few players who could stand alongside their American peers and run the changes.

Nevertheless, there was also a coterie of French improvisers for whom American-derived bebop was not the end, if even the means. Composer, arranger and sometime pianist Jef Gilson (who eventually began the famed Palm Records) was one of the ringleaders of the Parisian new jazz scene, mentoring young players like trumpeter Bernard Vitet, tenorman Jean-Louis Chautemps, drummer Charles Saudrais, bassist Beb Guerin and other soon-to-be leading lights. Tusques, though, was the only pianist at the time in Paris willing to extend those steps into the demanding compositional sound-world of ‘free jazz,’ and those who saw a continuous upward- and outward-mobility with this music looked to Tusques as a fulcrum.
By 1965, Vitet, Chautemps, Saudrais, and Portal (then primarily a classical clarinetist) had asked Tusques to compose a number of loose springboard-pieces to work on as a group, which led to the recording of Free Jazz for poet Marcel Moloudji’s tiny Moloudji label. In company with German vibraphonist-reedman Gunter Hampel’s Heartplants (Saba, 1965) and trumpeter Manfred Schoof’s Voices (CBS, 1966), Free Jazz is among the very earliest documents of a wholly European improvised music, one which springs more greatly from regional influences than those from across the Atlantic.

Free Jazz was followed in 1967 by Le Nouveau Jazz (Moloudji), which joined Tusques with Wilen in the saxophonist’s first recorded entrée into free playing (he would continue somewhat in this vein over the next several years), backed by Guerin and itinerant Italian drummer Aldo Romano, a fixture in Steve Lacy and Don Cherry’s ensembles of the period. Both Moloudji recordings are among the rarest documents of European jazz and were limited to a pressing of only 200 copies apiece—nevertheless, it was Tusques’ wherewithal that led to the first recorded examples of avant-garde French jazz.

By the mid- to late-60s in France, improvisation took on a political edge not dissimilar to that which it had in the States. France’s involvement in Vietnam at the start of the decade, not to mention governmental maltreatment across class lines of both workers and liberalist academics at the university level, led to the revolts of May 1968 and subsequent unrest, and the New Left found sympathetic ears among the jazz vanguard. Expatriate African-American and African artists, their struggle against racial oppression viewed by the Left with a similar lens to the proletarian struggle, led to a period of broader acceptance of free jazz in the liberal French public.

Tusques, though now looking at this period as “a reflection of the attitudes and ideas of the time,” was nevertheless one of the most notoriously political of the new French jazzmen—titles for his compositions like “L’Imperialisme est un Tigre un Papier,” “Les Forces Progressistes,” “Les Forces Reactionnaires,” and Black Panther-themed works like “Portrait of Erika Huggins,” “Right On!” and “Power to the People” belie a decidedly anti-establishment sensibility. The second volume of his Piano Dazibao series on Futura featured a cover with drawings of Mao, Lenin, and Arthur Ashe in addition to Tusques; the back of the third volume of the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra consists of drawings of the musicians interspersed with Chinese field workers.

Even if these concerns were “of the time” and not something Tusques feels a reflection of his current work, his affinity for a resurging interest in the Vienna School (Webern, Berg, Schoenberg) of composers belies a continuing political sensibility—“they were fighting fascism with their music, much as [improvisers] and artists do today.”

The first ripples of American free players began to show up on the Parisian scene in 1968, primarily due to an extreme paucity of gigs in New York and unwillingness on the part of major record companies to seriously document the music. Drummer Sunny Murray, late of the groups of Albert Ayler and Cecil Taylor, was one of the first to make his home in Paris (though saxophonists Marion Brown and Steve Lacy were making a stand as well), and that year formed his Acoustical Swing Unit with both French and visiting free players. Prophetically, its first European incarnation included Tusques, Guerin, Vitet, Portal, Jamaican tenorman Ken Terroade (previously based in London), itinerant West Indian trumpeter Ambrose Jackson, and later added expatriate Americans Alan Silva (cello), Frank Wright, Byard Lancaster, and Arthur Jones (saxophones) and Earl Freeman (bass). Tusques, with his balance of insistent left hand and pointillistic right, helped to reign in the first two official Swing Unit recording dates, two of his three with Murray. These include the eponymous 1968 ORTF concert recording released by Shandar (Sunny Murray) and its companion Big Chief (Pathé, 1969).

By 1969, as a result of offers from French labels like BYG, Musidisc-America and Pathé, a significant number of American free jazzmen had arrived in Paris for gigs and recording contracts; Tusques and his compatriots therefore had the opportunity to work with figures like Anthony Braxton, the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Don Cherry and trumpeter/trombonist Clifford Thornton. These latter two were of particular importance in Tusques’ development, for as a particularly good ear-learner he fit in perfectly with Cherry’s process-based, ongoing and ear-taught approach to learning the seemingly unending and all-encompassing “Togetherness” suite. Tusques was a frequent collaborator, even assisting Cherry with some of the piano parts on the famed Mu recordings (BYG, 1969)—a series of duets with drummer Ed Blackwell. He also joined up with Thornton, resulting in what might be the valve trombonist’s strongest recording, The Panther and the Lash (America, 1970), with Guerin and drummer Noel McGhie.

It didn’t take long, however, for a significant number of gigs to dry up as the French musicians’ unions began to frown on the large number of perpetually-visiting Americans in Paris. Some, like Murray and Silva, were able to stay on, however, and it was with those two in mind that Tusques assembled his third date as a leader, Intercommunal Music, for Shandar in 1971.

Originally planned as a quartet date for piano, cello, drums and the bass of Beb Guerin, on which a number of Tusques originals would be investigated, kismet and ‘snafu’ turned it into something quite different. “I booked several hours of studio time in advance, Beb and I waited and waited for hours and we were getting very nervous because Sunny didn’t arrive. Finally, there was less than an hour of studio time left, and here come Sunny and Alan with four friends saying ‘OK, here we are, let’s go!’ We only had 37 minutes left, and I couldn’t even teach them the tunes, so what you hear on the record is exactly what happened in the studio with that time.”

What looks like one of the heaviest line-ups of free jazzmen one could conceive of—Murray, Silva, Tusques, Guerin, trumpeter Al Shorter, alto saxophonist Steve Potts (who would later join the Steve Lacy quintet), bassist Bob Reid (of multinational improvising quintet Emergency) and percussionist Louis Armfield—was, in fact, completely unexpected. An insistent, driving and minimal theme is voiced by the ensemble, leading into one of the most memorable ‘free’ alto solos these ears have heard, Tusques alternating between rhythmic repetition, roiling bass soundmasses and anthemic Maoist folk melodies, the unrehearsed group surprisingly empathetic to Tusques’ drive and whims.

Yet Tusques increasingly began to find free improvisation a musical “dead end” and found it necessary to search for other, more integrated approaches to improvisation. In addition to playing and recording a number of solo piano expositions (released to great acclaim on the Futura and Le Chant du Monde labels), Tusques formed the Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra in the early ‘70s, a meeting of French and African musicians that would yield to a “popular appeal,” something that could get both social and artistic concerns out to a number of music listeners of all stripes.

“The name comes from these things: Intercommunal, like French and Africa together; Dance, so people can feel the music; and Free, because it was a free approach to traditional music of the world.” The group included a number of African percussionists, like Sam Ateba, Cheikh Fall and Guem, as well as the great alto saxophonist from Guinea, Jo Maka; French jazzmen like trumpeter Michel Marre; German trombonist Adolf Winkler (“he could play everything—one minute J.J. Johnson, the next minute Tricky Sam Nanton!”) and Spanish orator Carlos Andreu (“he was a revolutionary poet; he would get up and pick random passages from Leftist texts, improvising upon them in concert”).

African and Latin American folk themes yield to lengthy improvisational passages filled with more ebullience than severity in this context—there are even pieces that successfully hedge dub as much as they do Breton music or kwela. The orchestra lasted throughout the rest of the decade in various guises and on into the 1980s, recording nearly ten albums for vanguard French labels including Le Temps de Cerises and Vendemiare (a subsidiary of Palm), before eventually disbanding.

Since the mid-80s, Tusques has co-led a trio with Noel McGhie and Paris bass clarinet wizard Denis Colin, in some ways an heir apparent to the altars of Portal and Sclavis, albeit with an entirely bop-based sensibility that dips into the same spring as Dolphy. This trio recorded Tusques’ Blues Suite for Transes Europeenes in 1998, and it remains his most regular working group (Tusques picks his gigs with the utmost care, so this group might not work as much as followers of his music would like).

Tusques, in collaboration with his partner, actress/vocalist Isabel Juanpera, and members of the Parisian improvisers’ community like Colin and Vitet, has previously expanded upon the “Blues Suite” in works like Blue Phédre (Axolotl, 1996) and Le Jardin des Délices (In Situ, 1992), adding an operatic (and quite possibly cinematic) scale to his already colorful small-group music.

In what might seem a departure, one of Tusques' major projects is in collaboration with architect and visual artist Jean-Max Albert, in which Monk’s compositions are investigated visually. Numbers are applied to thematic fragments, and each number has a corresponding shape—these become surreal diagrams that retain perfectly the gravity and whimsy, the yin and yang of Monk’s music, at times like a painting of Mondrian, at times like a Miró. It his hoped that a concert version of this work can be performed, with Tusques performing the pieces surrounded onstage by the visual images. Such a multifaceted view of Monk is, in many ways, a perfect analogue for the music of François Tusques: an assemblage of insular phrases yields a colorful and multi-directional oeuvre, a never-ending film of freedom, culture, and social engagement. Intercommunal, indeed.

Thanks to François, Jean Rochard and Sarah Remke of the Minnesota sur Seine Festival, and Guy Kopelowicz for making this article possible.
Related Article Minnesota Sur Seine 2005: Intercommunal Music on the Mississippi
Recommended Listening
François Tusques, Blues Suite (Transes Europeens, 1998)François Tusques, Blue Phedre (Axolotl, 1996)
François Tusques, Intercommunal Free Dance Music Orchestra (Vendemiaire, 1976-1978)François Tusques, Intercommunal Music (Shandar, 1971)Clifford Thornton, The Panther and the Lash (America, 1970)Sunny Murray, Sunny Murray (Shandar, 1968)François Tusques, Free Jazz 1965 (Moloudji/In Situ, 1965)

PLEASE BUY MORE FRANCOIS TUSQUES
more info and some records can be bought from futura/marge(another legendary lable)

or Improvising Beings
here http://www.improvising-beings.com/





Nouveau Jazz (Columbia, Mouloudji, 1970) FLAC


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SABU TOYOZUMI / PAUL RUTHERFORD - FRAGRANCE (SABU-01)

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SABU TOYOZUMI - drums, percussion
PAUL RUTHERFORD - trombone

1. Fragrance  19:43
2. Brilliant Gawd Forbids  21:25
3. Moabit  7:22
4. Greeting Child Of New Year 7th  0:21

May/June 1998.  Sabu-01
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