Colin Wilkie, Shirley Hart, Albert Mangelsdorff, Joki Freund – Wild Goose (1969/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 37:57 minutes | 754 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
Free jazz encounters the English folk song. With his perceptive arrangements, Saxophonist-arranger-composer Joki Freund, a major force in German post-war jazz, captures and combines the atmospheres of both genres. English couple Colin Wilkie and Shirley Hart began as wandering troubadours, and traveled on to become a mainstay on the bourgeoning European folk scene of the ‘60’s. The core of the accompanying Hessen Radio Jazz Ensemble is trombone icon Albert Mangelsdorff’s Quintet, a group that changed the shape of German jazz in the 1960’s. Wilkie’s Icy Acres follows the tradition of English-Scottish whaling songs. Based on an old sea shanty, Fourth Flight features impressive solos by Mangelsdorff and tenor saxophonist Heinz Sauer. On the impressionistic Snowy Sunday a pulsing 6/8 rhythm propels Albert’s brother Emil’s flute, a vocal interlude, and Freund’s impassioned soprano solo. Willow and Rue has a processional feel before breaking out into a swinging Mangelsdorff solo. Played in quartet, Lament mourns the death of a child, with Shirley the solo vocal and Albert accompanying. Based on a 14th century folk song, Joki Freund’s Ich armes Maidlein klag mich sehr represents a tour de force of arranging. The traditional English love song Sweet Primroses receives affectionate treatment by Wilkie and Hart and a passionate solo by Sauer. With songs handsomely sung, sensitive arrangements, and an ensemble that includes Mangelsdorff’s quintet at its height, this album proves that folk and jazz are soul siblings at heart.
Read more![Kai Winding, Albert Mangelsdorff, Bill Watrous, Jiggs Whigham - Trombone Summit (1981/2016) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/07/4250644885563_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Kai Winding, Albert Mangelsdorff, Bill Watrous, Jiggs Whigham – Trombone Summit (1981/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 55:41 minutes | 1,02 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
This album’s a listening pleasure for any music lover, but if you have a particular fondness for the trombone’s warm-toned vocal sound, this album’s a must – a once in a lifetime conclave of four of the instrument’s greats. There’s Dane Kai Winding, best known for his classic series of jazz albums with modern trombone icon J.J. Johnson. With his multiphonics and exploratory bent, Germany’s Albert Mangelsdorff was a major innovator on the instrument. American Bill Watrous played with Maynard Ferguson and Ten Wheel Drive; his Manhattan Wildlife Refuge was a leading big band in the 70’s. The USA’s Jiggs Whigham worked in the Stan Kenton band before moving to Europe where he has been in continual demand as a soloist and educator. An added delight: American piano maestro Horace Parlan adds taste and depth with a solo on every piece but one.
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![Albert Mangelsdorff, Alphonse Mouzon, Jaco Pastorius - Trilogue (Live) (1977/2015) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz] Download](https://i0.wp.com/imghd.xyz/images/2022/06/07/4250644881268_600.jpg?resize=500%2C500&ssl=1)
Albert Mangelsdorff, Alphonse Mouzon, Jaco Pastorius – Trilogue (Live) (1977/2015)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 43:05 minutes | 731 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
Legendary Weather Report electric bassist Jaco Pastorius and quintessential jazz-fusion drummer Alphonse Mouzon join Mangelsdorff at the 1976 Berlin Jazz Days for a combustion of creativity. Trilogue starts off solo with a multiphonic melody line and then opens up with free-wheeling give-and-take between the three. Zores Mores is straight ahead swing with Mangelsdorf’s masterful oblique phrasing and the pyrotechnical playing of Pastorious and Mouzon. There’s a bit of Spain and Flamenco in Foreign Fun with Mouzon laying down a complex carpet of sound and Pastorious setting up drone-like riffs. Accidental Meeting doesn’t seem to be so accidental after all. Albert writes three musical phrases, each composed in a different city, and then three separate musical beings converge as if predestined. Ant Steps On An Elephant’s Toe has a mix of the quick and the ponderous as Albert prances, plunger mute in hand, to a funky fusion rhythm. Multiphonics galore.
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Albert Mangelsdorff – Tromboneliness (1977/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 43:06 minutes | 764 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
Albert Mangelsdorff stands alongside the likes of Jack Teagarten and J. J. Johnson in the pantheon of trombone greats. Recorded in 1976, this album affords the listener the opportunity to hear Albert solo in all his wondrous multiphonic diversity. It starts with the down-home singing harmonies on Do Your Own Thing. Trombonliness and Brief Inventions are essentially pieces improvised on the spot – ‘spontaneous compositions’.
Duke Ellington’s Creole Love Call is the only non-Mangelsdorff piece, “part of my feeling for the tradition of jazz. Ellington is very important to me”. Bonn “is a theme I thought of one day while strolling through the streets after a concert.” Questions to Come explores the trombone’s harmonics in more of a balladic form, whereas Mark Suetterlyn’s Boogie features Albert’s solo sped up to sound like a trumpet and dubbed over his trombone background, and Für Peter was dedicated to bassist Peter Trunk. Not only is this album a display of astounding invention and technique; it swings. Albert emphasized that, “to me, jazz is a rhythmic music – if you want to keep your playing exciting.”
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Albert Mangelsdorff – Birds of Underground (1973/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 43:17 minutes | 834 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff was a major innovator who has had an influence on jazz instrumentalists worldwide. His use of multiphonics, which utilizes vocalizing into the horn to produce chords and overtone effects, was ground-breaking. This 1973 album presented his newest group, with German saxophone great Heinz Sauer the one remaining member from Albert’s legendary 1960’s quartet. Saxophonist Gerd Dudek, lauded for his play with the likes of Manfred Schoof, Lester Bowie, and Joachim Kuhn, joins the front line. Buschi Niedergall was one of the most sought-after bassists on the avant-garde scene, and drummer Peter Giger is known best for his renowned group Family of Percussion. The exclusion of a chordal instrument allowed for a more open, exploratory approach. Wobbling notes and Fluted Crackle traverses through rip-roaring solos, muted segues, free-bop sections, and of course, Mangelsdorff’s astounding multiphonic gymnastics. Grive Musicienne finds the group in a communal exploration of the outer limits of sound. That collective exploration continues for the first few minutes of Birds of Underground before it resolves into a fantastic theme and swinging solos. 4-Xenobiosis concludes the group’s uncanny intuitive interplay. This exotic multi-colored flock of musicians are definitely birds of a feather. An intense exploration of form and freedom.
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Albert Mangelsdorff – Albert Mangelsdorff and His Friends (1969/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 35:39 minutes | 1,27 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS
The afterlife for Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer’s storied MPS Records has been tough to track. After Brunner-Schwer sold the rights to Philips in the early ’80s, the label changed hands several times—Polydor picked it up and passed it through a subsidiary, Universal Music Group acquired its holdings, Speakers Corner Records took over on the vinyl side of the equation, and then Edel AG finally acquired it in 2014. Now, in an effort to make the most out of this German imprint’s back catalog, MPS’ current owners are digging into the vaults to bring us some special projects that deserve to be dusted off. Don Ellis’ Soaring (MPS Records, 1973), built with his signature fusion aesthetic and containing Hank Levy’s now-(in)famous “Whiplash,” is one of them; the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band’s All Smiles (MPS Records, 1968), presenting a swinging intercontinental ensemble with the likes of Benny Bailey, Johnny Griffin, and Jimmy Woode in the mix, is another; and this compelling gem from trombone maverick Albert Mangelsdorff is the third item to round out the early summer reissues list for 2017.
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