By Ferruccio Martinotti
An ideal Mt. Rushmore of jazz should certainly show “A love supreme” as one
of the figureheads carved in the rock: not even a primate (no disregard
towards our ancestors…) would raise an eyebrow about and here is the last
spot on earth to explain why. Along the decades, some mavericks took up the
gauntlet, deciding to climb the Nanga Parbat on heels, or, in other words,
to cover such a monster milestone: Alice Coltrane on
World Galaxy (1971) and Live at Jazz Jamboree (1987),
surely the most meaningful for obvious reasons, then, as come to mind,
Ganavya, Wynton Marsalis, Turtle Island Quartet, Santana/McLaughlin,
Toshiyuki Miyama. Different backgrounds, different feelings, different
results. The pretty recent (2021) A Love Supreme. Live in Seattle is
the last and ultimate evidence of what a hellish task it is to handle with
that record. Someone else drew on the map a wholly peculiar route,
subverting the didascalic notion of the tribute or songbook, but rather
taking structural and dynamic cues from the original record, utilizing free
improv in their own way. We’re talking of Das B and its second album,
recorded and mixed at Brief Sand Studios, Berlin, in 2022, jointly released
by the Swedish Thanatosis Records and Corbett vs. Dempsey.
The lineup is deployed as follows:
Magda Mayas, piano. Living in Berlin, she developed a vocabulary utilizing
both the inside as well as the exterior parts of the piano. Using
preparations and objects, she explores textural, linear and fast moving
sound collage. She has recently been performing on a clavinet/pianet, an
electric piano from the 60s with strings and metal chimes, where she engages
with noise and more visceral sound material, equally extending the
instrumental sound palette using extended techniques and devices. She has
collaborated with the likes of John Butcher, Andy Moor, Zeena Perkins,
Joelle Leandre, Paul Lovens, Ikue Mori, Phill Niblock, Peter Evans, Andrea
Neumann, Burkhard Stangl, Christine Abdelnour and Axel Doerner.
Mazen Kerbaj, trumpet. Born in Beirut in 1975, Berlin based now, is a
musician, comics author and visual artist, widely considered as one of the
initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improv and experimental
music scene. He played his trumpet with Alan Bishop, Nate Wooley, Joe
McPhee, Peter Evans, Pauline Oliveros, The Necks, Michael Zerang, The Ex,
among others, “pushing the boundaries of the instrument and continues to
develop a personal sound and an innovative language, following in the
footsteps of pioneers like Bill Dixon, Axel Doerner and Franz Hautzinger”,
as per his bio notes.
Mike Majkowski, bass. Born in Australia, based in Berlin, active across a
wide range of contemporary, improv and experimental music since the early
2000s, he developed a highly innovative playing style, extending and
refining technical possibilities for the double bass. His musical work
ranges from purely acoustic to electro-acoustic to electronic and explores
relationships between stillness and pulse, spectral qualities of resonance,
duration and perception of listening. He lent his fat strings to Oren
Ambarchi, Marshall Allen, Tim Barnes, Han Bennink, Peter Brötzmann, Mats
Gustafsson, Silke Eberhard, Satoko Fuji, Evan Parker, Sven-Ake Johansson,
Alexander von Schlippenbach.
Tony Buck, drums. From The Necks’ fame, he certainly doesn’t need to be
introduced.
As a rule, it’s always fruitful to get the primary source, and that’s what
they say about this project:
“We are not attempting to recreate the album. Rather, we took the original
album’s track timing and instrumental structure, as well as some other
technical aspects, like balancing and panning, the occurrence of overdubs
and timbral relationships within the original, to create our tribute. This
was our process and our idea was to link our music-free improv-to its roots
in jazz and free jazz”. The final outcome is amazing and puzzling. If, on
one hand, we have the philological approach explained above, on the other,
we see the raw material, grinded and pulverized until the molecular state,
reassembled in urban, daunting, gloomy minimal textures, reminding us the
likes of Burial or Kode 9 dealing with a free and improv recipe. The music
is surely bringing traces of “A love supreme” but you’d need a DNA profile
to track them and this makes “Love” a challenge that needs and deserves to
be accepted: Trane would approve it, sure thing.