One year after the 2013 recording by New Old Luten Quintet, Tumult!, the exceptional free jazz grouping of Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky on sax & clarinet, Elan Pauer on grand piano & percussion, John Edwards & Robert Landfermann on double bass and Christian Lillinger on drums, took the stage at naTo, in Leipzig to record this energetic and strongly percussive followup.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2016 Country: Germany Packaging: Jewel Case Recorded at naTo, in Leipzig, Germany, on December 7th, 2014, by Marco Birkner.
"Krawall! jumped out from the effort to re on enact the success of the quintet happened in 2013. Despite the same cast, the same the venue, the same instruments, the same recording and the same sound mixing ingenieur the repetition for sure would became a variation.
In fact the quintet of the year 2014 took place on a different condition. Right after the musical set the theatrical scene of the EUPHORIUM's Second Stage Pub was expected. Maybe in effect of the dramaturgy of the entire program of that evening the second vast New Old Luten Quintet lasts one third less than the first finally called Tumult! Particularly Krawall! evolved without recourse to the warming on up in the more fundamental trio interaction. Maybe that's why the music of the quintet interplay comes up with such a hacking energy. Krawall! is less sostenuto but spotty, crumbly, squashed, pressed, a battle. It seems to be the most percussive one of the three great quintets.
Petrowsky again produces his gliding screams. He is a master to transform a melody into a scream and the other way round. You can listen to his unmatched style of oscillating expressionistic kinds of crying and whistled chantings. Sometimes the quintet sounds like everybody aesthetically falling one upon the other. Especially Oliver Schwerdts capacity to assail is strikingly. He and the pretended senior love to tussle. One can say with Elan Pauer Oliver Schwerdt creates a quintet work to be spelled allusively The Storming Of The Old Luten Guy.
Petrowsky's devotion to sustain very high pitches up to unusal durations seems to allure Pauer blasting out all the cluster harmonies he commands. After Luten reaches at 13'02'' a cis'''' briefly around 16' his fis''' lasts for 35 seconds. At the end above all that turmoil he let rise a melodic phrase that swings along it's nine tones sequenced for two times on a lower pitch and that is followed up by a consequent that he variegates each time on a lower pitch for six times prepairing the great relaxation after a final excitement of that multi on figured body. " on Euphorium Records
"In my review of Tumult!, the New Old Luten Quintet's previous release, I wrote that the improvisation "Lutens Letzter Tumult!" (Luten's Last Tumult!), suggested we might not hear East German free jazz legend Ernst Ludwig "Luten" Petrowsky in such energetic surroundings again, but I hoped we would. My wish has come true: Krawall! is another excellent recording.
The band remains Petrowsky (saxophone, clarinets), Elan Pauer a.k.a. Oliver Schwerdt (piano, little instruments), Christian Lillinger (drums) and John Edwards and Robert Landfermann (basses). As before, their music contains multiplicities, if not exactly oppositions: East German improv; the more boistorous West European tradition, itself rooted in US jazz (Petrowsky's lush Charlie Parker-influenced phrases); and more fragile instant composing - Lillinger and Landfermann studied at conservatories in Dresden and Cologne.
Krawall!, German for "riot" or "ruckus", implies a certain aggression and yearning for destruction (as Günter "Baby" Sommer puts it in his contribution to the wonderful liner notes), as in the early days of European free jazz when Peter Kowald coined the phrase "Kaputtspielphase" (blowing to pieces) when the music was often associated with a destructive iconoclasm. But Krawall! is much more than displaying current individual moods, it's no barometer of an imaginary emotional state of mind. The word has pejorative overtones, but in this context it suggests expressive power. It's not all energy playing, however: the Quintet creates a carefully balanced improvisation.
The album consists of a single 30-minute piece - "Letzter Krawall" - divided into three parts, distinguished by contrasting dynamics and instrumental breaks. After hectic and intense passages, characterized by Petrowsky's harshly overblown melodies and Schwerdt's Tayloresque runs and chords, they often drop out to give the music time to breathe. The two basses and the drums maintain a frenetic velocity, it's as if carried along in one another's wakes. At one point, the piano hammers a single note repeatedly, like a manic stopwatch, while Lillinger rattles and fizzles and Petrowsky throws in short bebop licks. After ten minutes things become gloomier, verging on dissolution, but the basses pick up the loose ends and rethread them. Schwerdt plays inside the piano and Lillinger uses all kinds of assorted percussion, augmenting the spooky atmosphere. A tuned down string on one of the basses sets your teeth on edge. The last five minutes revert to the tumultuous beginning, with the whole band going wild again. Finally, the music comes to an abrupt end with two notes on harmonica.
For Luten Petrowsky free jazz is an encouragement to combine Parker with Ayler, Coleman Hawkins with Ornette. He claims that avoiding conventions means ignoring history, being thrown back on yourself instead of creating something new on the shoulders of giants. For him, free improvisation is a kind of truthfulness. He says in the liner notes that he was very pleased with the gig as the quintet had performed as a real unit, and he was almost "high" when he drove home.
And more good news: there's nothing "last" about this recording either - the band plans to release another album called Rabatz! a word with similar connotations to "Krawall". Can't wait to listen.
Krawall! was recorded at naTo Leipzig on December 7th, 2014, three days before Luten Petrowsky's 81st birthday."-Martin Schray, The Free Jazz Collective