The Squid's Ear Magazine

Keune / Russell / Schneider / Lovens

Nothing Particularly Horrible (Live In Bochum '93)

Keune / Russell / Schneider / Lovens : Nothing Particularly Horrible (Live In Bochum '93) (FMR)

Bringing together British and German free improvisers for this 1993 concert during the Ruhr Jazz Festival, the quartet of John Russell on guitar, Hans Schneider on bass, Paul Lovens on drums & percussion, and Stefan Keune on saxophones, find their convincing collective voice from previous pairings of the improvisers, including News from the Shed & Stefan Keune Trio.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



John Russell-acoustic guitar

Hans Schneider-double bass

Paul Lovens-drums, percussion

Stefan Keune-sopranino saxophone, tenor saxophone


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UPC: 748079797178

Label: FMR
Catalog ID: 560-1119
Squidco Product Code: 28441

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2019
Country: UK
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels
Recorded live during the Ruhr Jazz Festival, at the Museum Bochum, in Bochum, Germany, on October 10th, 1993, by by Ansgar Ballhorn.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Recorded live in concert, in October 1993, at Museum Bochum, during the Ruhr Jazz Festival, this album is not a reissue but is being released for the first time, its wryly amusing title indicating that it has been declared fit for public consumption. In fact, the album's four tracks, being the only recordings of this Anglo-German quartet together, make a valuable snapshot of the four at an interesting stage of their careers. Guitarist John Russell and drummer Paul Lovens had first paired up some years earlier, in the quintet News from the Shed (completed by John Butcher, Phil Durrant and Radu Malfatti), which toured England in 1986 and continued gigging until 1994. In 1992, saxophonist Stefan Keune and bassist Hans Schneider had recorded together as two-thirds of the Stefan Keune Trio, alongside drummer Paul Lytton (not to be confused with Lovens!)

Varying in length from twenty-three minutes down to four-and-a-half across this forty-five minutes, the freely improvised tracks give all four musicians ample space to be heard. Without any apparent need for a warm-up, from the start of "Stretchers," the longest track and opener, all four are in full flow; Schneider and Lovens do not adopt the role of a conventional rhythm section but are afforded the freedom to roam far and wide in addition to maintaining the group's pulse, freedom which they each seize at every opportunity, adding occasional solos, embellishments to the group sound and commentaries upon the music of their bandmates. Russell's role is not dissimilar, occupying a crucial position between the bass & drums and Keune; his trademark guitar arpeggios and fills clearly identify this group as a quartet not a trio, an important distinction.

Unsurprisingly, the saxophonist tends to gravitate to the fore, without obviously hogging the limelight or crowding out the other three. His quick reactions and fluid playing make for thrilling listening, whether he be on tenor or sopranino. All things considered, it is all too evident why each of the four pieces here received prolonged applause from the audience at the concert. After this recording, Keune kept up links with the other three members, recording in long-standing duos both with Russell and with Lovens (see the You Tube clip below for all three together at London's Vortex in 2012), and in a trio with Schneider plus drummer Achim Krämer. This is classic European improv at its best."-John Eyles, All About Jazz



This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Get additional information at All About Jazz

Artist Biographies

"John Russell got his first guitar in 1965 while living in Kent and began to play in and around London from 1971 onwards. An early involvement with the emerging free improvisation scene (from 1972) followed, seeing him play in such places as The Little Theatre Club, Ronnie Scott's, The Institute of Contemporary Arts, The Musicians' Co-Op and the London Musicians' Collective. From 1974 his work extended into teaching, broadcasts (radio and television) and touring in the United Kingdom and, ever extensively, in other countries around the world . He has played with many of the world's leading improvisers and his work can be heard on over 50 CDs and albums. In 1981, he founded QUAQUA, a large bank of improvisers put together in different combinations for specific projects and, in 1991, he started MOPOMOSO which has become the UK's longest running concert series featuring mainly improvised music."

-John Russell Website (http://www.john-russell.co.uk/biography/)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Hans Schneider started playing in 1964 in a variety of beat, rock and jazz groups, joining the Georg Graewe Quintet in 1974. This has been a long standing working relationship which has included work with the GrubenKlangOrchester, though with a break from around 1983 and resurrected in 1990 to produce, among other things, the excellent recorded work of Spellings by Frisque Concordance.

Another long working relationship was formed with Wolfgang Fuchs in 1978 via a trio with Klaus Huber on drums, through Xpact with Erhard Hirt on guitar and Paul Lytton on percussion and the foundation, with Fuchs, Hirt and others, of the King Ubu Orchestru.

Hans Schneider was organiser of the first 'Internationale tage fur improvisierte musik' in Leverkusen in 1982 and was organiser and art director for the 1990 'Tage der improvisierten musik' [Days of improvised music] in Leverkusen. His list of collaborators includes Floros Floridis, Maggie Nichols, Peter Kowald, John Tchicai, Alex von Schlippenbach, Phil Minton, Sven-Ake Johansson, Kenny Wheeler, Peter Broetzmann, John Russell, David Moss, Gerry Hemingway, Alan Tomlinson, Klaus Koch, Phil Wachsmann, Gunter Christmann, Robert Dick, Evan Parker, Sebi Tramontana, Carlos Zingaro, and Fred van Hove.

Current working ensembles include the Hans Schneider-Dorothea Schurch Duett - music for double bass and voice; Xpact [new version] with Dorothea Schurch and Paul Lytton, a trio/quartet with Paul Rutherford, Paul Lovens /and John Russell, and the 'Gratkowski Chamber Trio' with English tuba player Melvyn Poore and Frank Gratkowski."

-EFI (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mschneid.html)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Born in Aachen, Germany, 6 June 1949; Drums, percussion, musical saw, etc.

Paul Lovens played the drums as a child. Self-taught, from the age of 14 he played in groups of various jazz styles and popular musics and from 1969 has worked almost exclusively as an improvisor on individually selected instruments. He has worked internationally with most of the leading musicians in free jazz and free improvisation, among whom have included the Globe Unity Orchestra, the Berlin Contemporary Jazz Orchestra, the Schlippenbach trio, Quintet Moderne, Company, and a duo with Paul Lytton. He has undertaken concert tours in more than 40 countries, is a founder member of a musician's cooperative and has produced recordings for his own label, Po Torch Records since 1976. He has worked with painter Herbert Bardenheuer. Despite very rare solo performances, and although giving occasional concerts with ad-hoc groups and an involvement in projects with film, dance and actors, Paul Lovens' main interest and work is musical improvisation in fixed small groups. In the mid-1990s these small groups numbered around 16, of which a few were part of a special selection, called 'vermögen'.

Paul Lovens somehow epitomises the free drummer/percussionist who is not there to lay down the beat and kick everyone else into action but to listen, colour, contribute, guide, and occasionally direct, the overall cooperative sound. In concert one cannot fail to be moved by his intensity and concentration and there is an overiding feeling that even the most random events are somehow planned in time. In this respect, there is a nice irony that on the Nothing to read CD with Mats Gustafsson, Lovens describes his kit as consisting of 'selected and unselected drums and cymbals'. Miking seems to be a problem at times with some recordings giving him undue prominence and others insufficient. Good recordings are Elf bagatellen, Nothing to read, Pakistani pomade, and ,stranger than love."

-European Free Improv (http://www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/mlovens.html)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Stefan Keune: Born in Oberhausen, Germany, 1965

From 1982, Stefan Keune studied privately with various teachers starting on the tenor saxophone. He was attracted to free improvised music from the beginning while using classical techniques from contemporary music as the basis of his playing. Keune began playing in local groups from 1985 (with Martin Blume amongst others) and since then he has intensively dedicated himself to the different kinds of improvised music. In 1990 he established contacts, first of all with Paul Lytton, then also with Dietmar Diesner, Matthias Bauer and others. In 1991, together with Lytton and bass player Hans Schneider he founded the "Stefan Keune Trio", and in 1992, the CD Loft was released. This was followed by an intense chamber-music-like phase of work, for example in a quartet with Paul Lovens, John Russell and Hans Schneider. He has played in close association with British free improvisors such as Roger Turner, Phil Durrant, John Butcher and others as well as with the other European improvisors such as Mats Gustafsson, Raymond Strid, Radu Malfatti and Peter Kowald. Recent groupings include a duo with John Russell, a duo with Paul Lovens, a trio with Dominic Lash and Steve Noble, a trio with Georg Wolf and Jörg Fischer, a quartet with Hans-Peter Hiby, Raoul van der Weide and Martin Blume and also one of the seminal groups within German free improvisation, XPACT (with Erhard Hirt, Hans Schneider and Paul Lytton)."

-Stefan Keune Website (https://stefankeune.com/)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Stretchers 23:13

2. Cuism 9:43

3. Drei 4:29

4. With A Big Stick 6:51

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Jazz
Free Improvisation
Collective Free Improvsation
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
London & UK Improv & Related Scenes
Quartet Recordings

Search for other titles on the label:
FMR.


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