Mytha, Hans Kennel

How It All Started

Label: Hatology Country: Switzerland

"Extraordinary is an over-used word, but it applies to this album, and then some. The music is made almost entirely by Swiss alphorns, heavy wooden horns ten-to-twelve feet long, straight except for their bulbous curved bells, which rest on the ground, the player standing at the business end, gripping the instrument's neck with both hands and, one imagines, bringing new meaning to the word "blowhard." Alphorns look cumbersome and lumpen on an industrial scale, and it's hard to imagine them making even the most rudimentary music, let alone jazz.

But appearances can be deceptive. Although limited in range (there are no valves or keys), the alphorn produces a surprisingly soft and mellifluous tone-another mountain long horn, the Tibetan dung, made of copper, produces an altogether rougher, harsher sound-and, when played by a virtuoso, the alphorn is remarkably nimble.

Brahms and Leopold Mozart both wrote for the instrument, but so far as I know, Mytha is the first jazz band to feature it. The group was founded by the Swiss free improv and third steam trumpeter Hans Kennel in 1990 to celebrate the alphorn's legacy and, by the by, bring it into the jazz tradition. There are five players, four of whom double on the buchel, another long horn, but with a coiled construction, giving it greater range than its larger cousin. How It All Started is a compilation taken from Mytha (HATart, 1991) and Mytha Two (HATart, 1994).

[...] How It All Started-intriguing, inventive and sui generis-will reward listeners intrepid enough to give it a chance."-Chris May, All About Jazz