Der Dritte Stand – Spontaneous Live Series 015 (Spontaneous Music Tribune, 2024) ~ The Free Jazz Collective

By Martin Schray

The music of Der Dritte Stand’s second album Spontaneous Live Series 015
evokes powerful images, especially if you close your eyes while listening:
Rudi Fischerlehner’s percussion drags heavily along at the beginning of the
improvisation, as if a chain gang were moving a mighty tree trunk. Above
this, Matthias Bauer’s frantically bowed bass buzzes like a myriad of flies
and Matthias Müller’s trombone looms over the other two instruments,
heralding disaster. The basic orientation of this structure shifts only
minimally in the opening five minutes of the forty-minute piece, e.g. when
Fischerlehner changes his beat and Müller abandons the dark, low registers.
Only when Bauer stops arcoing after seven minutes and starts with pizzicato,
does the – fascinating – first part come to an end and something completely
new begins. Bass and drums seem to chase the trombone mercilessly, then
they circle each other, almost lurking. The whole thing leads to a dialog
between Müller and Fischerlehner, which Bauer seems to comment on with
pistol-like shots, as if he was watching the duet with amusement.
Additionally, Part 3 almost brings the improvisation to a standstill, but
only to take a completely different direction – more airy, more equalized,
freer, even if the tempo and concentration are still high at times.
Matthias Bauer’s bass in particular takes center stage here. When the
trombone kicks in, the music sounds like a blues and American and European
traditions are combined in a first-class way.

In the second part of the set, too, the alternation of density and openness
remains the main characteristic of the music. Especially towards the end,
when the improvisation gets into a deliberate lurch, Müller keeps it stable
with a melody, before riding towards the furious end with an increase in
tempo and several great riffs hurled out.

What makes the improvisation so special is the clarity, the almost
dramaturgically coherent structure, as if the piece was a play. Everything
is just right, no phrase is too long or too exaggerated. Arco and pizzicato
phases alternate at exactly the right intervals, the drumming is never too
expressive, but never too restrained either. If you didn’t know that the
set, which was recorded as part of the Silence/Noise 7th Spontaneous Music
Festival in Poznań/Poland in October 2023, was completely improvised, you
would swear that compositional elements at least played a role. Ultimately,
however, it’s simply the somnambulistic certainty with which the three
musicians come together that has brought this extraordinary music to life.
The audience is rightly enraptured at the end. So am I, and believe me,
it’s even more fun listening to it repeatedly.