When we reviewed (and very often praised) Oliver Schwerdt’s projects on
this website, it has usually been about his quintets with two basses, drums
and piano plus a saxophone hero (Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, Peter Brötzmann
or Akira Sakata) or the reduced version of these bands in the form of a
trio. But Schwerdt can also do things differently. In 2021 and 2024, he
released two trio recordings with Barry Guy on bass and Günter “Baby”
Sommer on drums, which musically pointed in a slightly different direction
compared to the powerhouses of the quintets. Schwerdt had already played
with trumpeter Axel Dörner in 2016, but the drummer at the time was Roger
Turner. On Jul Fuel, however, Julian Sartorius took over.
In the liner notes for this excellent recording, Schwerdt mentions that at
the 2024 festival in St. Johann the Dutch vibraphonist Els Vandeweyer told
him – after watching his show with the above-mentioned trio with Guy and
Sommer – that his “playing has reminded her of the style of the late Fred
Van Hove“. Although Schwerdt confirms that he was impressed and
influenced by the “greatness of this grandmaster’s buttery rolling
performance“, I still see a lot of Cecil Taylor in his playing.
Jul Fuel
starts with a solo by Schwerdt, in which he first lays out a sound tapestry
of runs and clusters, letting the notes bump, clang and whir back and
forth. The improvisation throbs like an enormous but irregular heartbeat,
before it comes to an abrupt stop. Both Van Howe and Taylor can be heard
here.
On “Drain Delicacy“ the drums enter, and even if Julian Sartorius uses the
bass drum very pointedly, his playing with his high-pitched drum set is
reminiscent of Tony Oxley, Taylor’s preferred drummer in his late phase.
Schwerdt is also pushed by Sartorius’s style, he knocks out short, almost
crazy, super-short passages, he works the inside of the instrument, it
sounds as if he’s angry at the piano itself, before he drives the
improvisation forward with dark runs. The whole thing is stretched
further with whip-like strokes of the right hand and before dissolves.
It all sounds like an homage to Taylor, but it’s not at all, because
anyone who thought Axel Dörner was doing the Raphé Malik (Taylor’s
trumpeter on some of his most famous records) when he joins the duo was
on the wrong track. Because the whole concept of the show makes suddenly
sense. With Dörner, the European avant-garde finds its way into this set,
we leave the paths that free jazz seemed to have set and move into the
exploration of sounds that are darker than those of similar projects. The
construct thrives on the contrasts between the deep growl of Schwerdt’s
left hand and Dörner’s crushed, ultra-high notes (these are the greatest
moment of this recording). “(Slip Fit) Fizz Blitz (Slit Kit)”, at more
than 23 minutes the centerpiece of this album, is like a showcase of what
modern avant-garde improvised music is capable of in the second decade of
this century, what traditions it builds on and where it’s heading. This is
also visible structurally, as the set ends with a spectacular ten-minute
solo by Axel Dörner. If you want to see how Jaimie Branch must have felt
when she first heard his recordings and why she was so enthusiastic
about his style, then this is the right place for you. The way he
transforms his instrument into an abstract sound generator with a variety
of extended techniques and how he switches from a quiet, dense phase to a
noisy passage, which he interrupts with pauses, is simply incredible.
Jul Fuel is another construction stone in Oliver Schwerdt’s very
independent, consistent musical building. It’s a pleasure to accompany him
as a listener.
Jul Fuel is available as a CD and as a download.