Selwyn Lissack’s Friendship Next of Kin

Facets of the Univers
DMG ARC 702

Sven-Åke Johansson, Moderne Nordeuropäische Dorfmusik

Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 - 72

Olof Bright Editions OBCD 14-15

Operating in the shade of rock music’s hegemony and somewhat overshadowed by American experiments, in the late 1960s-early 1970s European-based improvisers were creating their own answers to the question of how to forge modern music.

As these little-known period CDs led by drummer-conceptual artists demonstrate, these responses could take a multitude of forms. Better known of the leaders is Swede Sven Åke Johansson, a long-time Berlin resident, whose affiliation with the avant-garde ranges from his early participation in saxophonist Peter Brötzmann’s bands –including the seminal Machine Gun session – to his position today when he still plays with youngish experimenters like trumpeter Axel Dörner. His art is a sideline.

Facets of the Univers on the other hand is led by Selwyn Lissack, a South African, who subsequently abandoned music to concentrate on his career as a hologram sculptor. Recorded in 1969, the CD, which has been beefed up with a second version of the title track, captures that point when expatriates of all sorts were shaking up the London jazz scene. Most of the rest of the band consists of other former South Africans like trumpeter Mongezi Feza, bassist Harry Miller and Louis Moholo on incidental percussion. The group is filled out by Jamaican Kenneth Terroade on tenor saxophone and flute; Englishman Mike Osborne on alto saxophone; and American Earl Freeman on piano, bass and voice

Although Freeman, who also played with saxophonists Archie Shepp and Noah Howard, is the only Yank on the date, the session seems to take its cue from the extended polyphonic exoticism captured on similar New Thing outings of the time, encompassing ragged, climatic unison heads and expositions – plus a spoken word section.

Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 – 72 is an altogether different affair. As well as Johansson’s blunt, unremitting percussion work, the 1968 band features bassist Werner Götz, who holds things together rhythmically, and Norbert Eisbrenner, who today is also a painter, but then split his improvising between unvarnished Energy music on alto saxophone and Ur-psychedelic guitar runs. One track from Stockholm in 1970 adds legendary tenor saxophonist Bengt “Frippe” Nordstöm (1936-2000), whose contribution ranges from Aylerian to distracted The three final tracks, recorded in Oslo with cellist Peter Dyck, Eisbrenner and Johansson meander due to the sonic contradictions between the cellist’s sometimes romantically legato style and the guitarist’s style mutation into what could be a prototypical heavy-metal string shredding.

A Cape Town native, Lissack arrived in Britain in the mid-1960s and hooked up with like-minded players from his Apartheid-era homeland and others. Yet on this CD, the undulating lines, contrapuntal reed squeals and pounding percussion on both versions of “Friendship Next of Kin” relate more to similar Shepp or Albert Ayler dates than anything the expatriate Africans or minimalist-oriented Brits were trying,

For a start, playing a Don Cherry-like pocket trumpet, Feza’s triple-tongue slurs and tremolo sluices seem to come from Donald Ayler not the Townships, while both saxophonists’ wiggling snorts and walloping honks fit into the Shepp-John Tchicai mold of the time. Meanwhile Freeman contributes ragged, high-frequency piano chording as an irregularly paced counter line to the main theme. As the two percussionists add redoubled flams and bounces, gospelish call-and-response and layering discord results when Osborne and Terroade add glossolalia. Finally the piece is brought to its head with a tincture of bright growls from the trumpeter and a conclusive piano chord and drum roll.

The second version of “Friendship Next of Kin” is more of the same, except additionally irregularly pitched and recaps the head, which mirrors Ayler’s “Ghosts”. Along the way, Freeman introduces a waterfall of dynamic pianism and Feza plays high-pitched triplets; while the split-tone saxophone solos are harsh and antiphonal. More so than the first cut, Lissack gets to showcase his cymbal reverberations, patterning and rolls on the snares and toms.

Derivative and shackled to its time-frame, Freeman’s poetry on the title track is more an artifact than an avowal. In contrast, the memorable asides are Lissack’s tympani-like resonations, finger-cymbal like slaps and concussions from Moholo, swaying sul tasto lines from Miller and some raspy triplets from Feza. Osborne’s shrill and irregular whine confirms his individual status in this context, while Terroade’s double-tonguing on flute adds more variety to the cut.

Variety wasn’t among the Johansson trio’s concerns on the first CD of his collection. It was 1968 in Berlin, and the drummer’s group was one of the many providing what they heard as a soundtrack to a student and workers revolt. As elsewhere throughout this set, Götz comes across as MVP; his brooding thumps holding the almost-48½-minute piece together as the other two appear to be forging a progenitor to punk-jazz.

Extending the range of his kit as if he was playing electric drums, Johansson’s percussion impulses include clicks, clanks, sprawls, pumps and rolls. Eisbrenner is beginning to utilize phasers and distortion in his guitar solos and if it wasn’t for the bassist’s thick chording, the guitarist could have dragooned performance into Yardbirds territory. Luckily on alto saxophone, his trills and breaths introduce wispy reed-biting and hisses that lock into the Free Jazz tradition and are propelled with some Sunny Murray-like door knocking from the drummer. Although Eisbrenner’s lines are sometimes as abstract and fluttery as Götz’s are solid and conceptual, this adds to the track’s appeal. More than a revolutionary war cry, the reference to “modern Northern European village music” in the title is reified by inference if not intent.

Eventually the musique brut opens up enough so that the bassist can relax his sul tasto beat for fiddle-like runs and to scour and pick additional tinctures from his four strings. His freedom appears to embolden Eisbrenner as a guitarist, and on that instrument his soloing encompasses hard, chromatic frailing plus harsh below the bridge, both mixed with unexpected amp feedback. Summing up, the piece lurches to a finale which features the drummer roused to military style paradiddles and flams and the bassist introducing dramatic Death Metal-like multiphonics while double stopping.

Norway – Death Metal’s birthplace – appears to adversely affect the group four years later on during three tracks taped at an Oslo club. At this point however, Eisbrenner and Johansson are partnered by cellist Dyck. Although some of the cellist’s strident, lower-pitched sawing is reminiscent of Joel Freedman’s work with Ayler, most of the time the instrument’s harmonic history adds an unneeded elegance to the tracks. Additionally – intentionally or not – the guitarist had by then planted himself firmly in the rock camp. He speedily flanges and rappels up and down his strings reveal licks that seem to have wandered in from a country-rock session. While a few passages show off the drummer’s skills weaving slide whistles shrills, press rolls and bell-ringing into Free Jazz rhythms, even banging bluntly on the bass drum can’t seem to reconcile the others’ conceptions.

Furthermore, despite Götz’s presence two years earlier in Stockholm, the 26-minute improvisation there also never quite solidifies. Part of the problem may be that Eisbrenner is beginning to concentrate most fully on a rockier style, with passages sounding as if he has a resonator attached to his f-hole. Additionally, Nordström’s cloning of Ayler – he was Ramblin’ Jack Elliott to Ayler’s Woody Guthrie – seems in this instance to have slowed down his idea flow. Certain phrases that resemble “Ghosts” or “Vibrations” appear over and over again; some licks are mere phrase extenders or hooting overblowing. At one point Nordström’s meandering cause someone – Eisbrenner perhaps? – to chime in with Swing-to-Bop piano comping behind some of his solos. Later on, someone intones a poem in Swedish, which detracts as completely from the cohesive creation as Freeman’s versifying does on the other CD. At the track’s conclusion, Dyck introduces Jack Benny-style, fiddle-string scratching as the drummer reverberates something that sounds very close to garbage can lids. Overall, it’s the near-elastic resonation from Johansson’s cymbals and scraps on his percussion innards and sides which enliven the piece.

Both Facets of the Univers and Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 – 72 are valuable historical documents, although neither quite makes it into the front rank. With a greater range of colors, the Lissack session may have a slight edge, blunted by the recitation and its then-contemporary stance. Johansson’s three sessions attempt more, but also suffer from a too-loose live presentation. Of the three, the 1968 disc has the most to offer musically and sociologically.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Facets: 1. Friendship Next of Kin 2. Facets of the Universe 3. Friendship Next of Kin

Personnel: Facets: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Kenneth Terroade (tenor saxophone and flute); Earl Freeman (piano, bass and voice); Harry Miller (bass); Selwyn Lissack (drums) and Louis Moholo (incidental percussion)

Track Listing: Berlin: CD I: 1. Berlin Symphonie+ CD II 1. New Nordic light I*+ 2. Fernes Donnern mit Donnerblech 3. Kleiner Marsch 4. Ended mit vibrato und wirbel

Personnel: Berlin: Bengt “Frippe” Nordstöm (tenor saxophone)*; Norbert Eisbrenner (guitar, alto saxophone and voice); Peter Dyck (cello [CD2 tracks 2-4]); Werner Götz bass) + and Sven-Åke Johansson (drums and voice)

May 18, 2008

Sven-Åke Johansson, Moderne Nordeuropäische Dorfmusik

Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 - 72
Olof Bright Editions OBCD 14-15

Selwyn Lissack’s Friendship Next of Kin

Facets of the Univers

DMG ARC 702

Operating in the shade of rock music’s hegemony and somewhat overshadowed by American experiments, in the late 1960s-early 1970s European-based improvisers were creating their own answers to the question of how to forge modern music.

As these little-known period CDs led by drummer-conceptual artists demonstrate, these responses could take a multitude of forms. Better known of the leaders is Swede Sven Åke Johansson, a long-time Berlin resident, whose affiliation with the avant-garde ranges from his early participation in saxophonist Peter Brötzmann’s bands –including the seminal Machine Gun session – to his position today when he still plays with youngish experimenters like trumpeter Axel Dörner. His art is a sideline.

Facets of the Univers on the other hand is led by Selwyn Lissack, a South African, who subsequently abandoned music to concentrate on his career as a hologram sculptor. Recorded in 1969, the CD, which has been beefed up with a second version of the title track, captures that point when expatriates of all sorts were shaking up the London jazz scene. Most of the rest of the band consists of other former South Africans like trumpeter Mongezi Feza, bassist Harry Miller and Louis Moholo on incidental percussion. The group is filled out by Jamaican Kenneth Terroade on tenor saxophone and flute; Englishman Mike Osborne on alto saxophone; and American Earl Freeman on piano, bass and voice

Although Freeman, who also played with saxophonists Archie Shepp and Noah Howard, is the only Yank on the date, the session seems to take its cue from the extended polyphonic exoticism captured on similar New Thing outings of the time, encompassing ragged, climatic unison heads and expositions – plus a spoken word section.

Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 – 72 is an altogether different affair. As well as Johansson’s blunt, unremitting percussion work, the 1968 band features bassist Werner Götz, who holds things together rhythmically, and Norbert Eisbrenner, who today is also a painter, but then split his improvising between unvarnished Energy music on alto saxophone and Ur-psychedelic guitar runs. One track from Stockholm in 1970 adds legendary tenor saxophonist Bengt “Frippe” Nordstöm (1936-2000), whose contribution ranges from Aylerian to distracted The three final tracks, recorded in Oslo with cellist Peter Dyck, Eisbrenner and Johansson meander due to the sonic contradictions between the cellist’s sometimes romantically legato style and the guitarist’s style mutation into what could be a prototypical heavy-metal string shredding.

A Cape Town native, Lissack arrived in Britain in the mid-1960s and hooked up with like-minded players from his Apartheid-era homeland and others. Yet on this CD, the undulating lines, contrapuntal reed squeals and pounding percussion on both versions of “Friendship Next of Kin” relate more to similar Shepp or Albert Ayler dates than anything the expatriate Africans or minimalist-oriented Brits were trying,

For a start, playing a Don Cherry-like pocket trumpet, Feza’s triple-tongue slurs and tremolo sluices seem to come from Donald Ayler not the Townships, while both saxophonists’ wiggling snorts and walloping honks fit into the Shepp-John Tchicai mold of the time. Meanwhile Freeman contributes ragged, high-frequency piano chording as an irregularly paced counter line to the main theme. As the two percussionists add redoubled flams and bounces, gospelish call-and-response and layering discord results when Osborne and Terroade add glossolalia. Finally the piece is brought to its head with a tincture of bright growls from the trumpeter and a conclusive piano chord and drum roll.

The second version of “Friendship Next of Kin” is more of the same, except additionally irregularly pitched and recaps the head, which mirrors Ayler’s “Ghosts”. Along the way, Freeman introduces a waterfall of dynamic pianism and Feza plays high-pitched triplets; while the split-tone saxophone solos are harsh and antiphonal. More so than the first cut, Lissack gets to showcase his cymbal reverberations, patterning and rolls on the snares and toms.

Derivative and shackled to its time-frame, Freeman’s poetry on the title track is more an artifact than an avowal. In contrast, the memorable asides are Lissack’s tympani-like resonations, finger-cymbal like slaps and concussions from Moholo, swaying sul tasto lines from Miller and some raspy triplets from Feza. Osborne’s shrill and irregular whine confirms his individual status in this context, while Terroade’s double-tonguing on flute adds more variety to the cut.

Variety wasn’t among the Johansson trio’s concerns on the first CD of his collection. It was 1968 in Berlin, and the drummer’s group was one of the many providing what they heard as a soundtrack to a student and workers revolt. As elsewhere throughout this set, Götz comes across as MVP; his brooding thumps holding the almost-48½-minute piece together as the other two appear to be forging a progenitor to punk-jazz.

Extending the range of his kit as if he was playing electric drums, Johansson’s percussion impulses include clicks, clanks, sprawls, pumps and rolls. Eisbrenner is beginning to utilize phasers and distortion in his guitar solos and if it wasn’t for the bassist’s thick chording, the guitarist could have dragooned performance into Yardbirds territory. Luckily on alto saxophone, his trills and breaths introduce wispy reed-biting and hisses that lock into the Free Jazz tradition and are propelled with some Sunny Murray-like door knocking from the drummer. Although Eisbrenner’s lines are sometimes as abstract and fluttery as Götz’s are solid and conceptual, this adds to the track’s appeal. More than a revolutionary war cry, the reference to “modern Northern European village music” in the title is reified by inference if not intent.

Eventually the musique brut opens up enough so that the bassist can relax his sul tasto beat for fiddle-like runs and to scour and pick additional tinctures from his four strings. His freedom appears to embolden Eisbrenner as a guitarist, and on that instrument his soloing encompasses hard, chromatic frailing plus harsh below the bridge, both mixed with unexpected amp feedback. Summing up, the piece lurches to a finale which features the drummer roused to military style paradiddles and flams and the bassist introducing dramatic Death Metal-like multiphonics while double stopping.

Norway – Death Metal’s birthplace – appears to adversely affect the group four years later on during three tracks taped at an Oslo club. At this point however, Eisbrenner and Johansson are partnered by cellist Dyck. Although some of the cellist’s strident, lower-pitched sawing is reminiscent of Joel Freedman’s work with Ayler, most of the time the instrument’s harmonic history adds an unneeded elegance to the tracks. Additionally – intentionally or not – the guitarist had by then planted himself firmly in the rock camp. He speedily flanges and rappels up and down his strings reveal licks that seem to have wandered in from a country-rock session. While a few passages show off the drummer’s skills weaving slide whistles shrills, press rolls and bell-ringing into Free Jazz rhythms, even banging bluntly on the bass drum can’t seem to reconcile the others’ conceptions.

Furthermore, despite Götz’s presence two years earlier in Stockholm, the 26-minute improvisation there also never quite solidifies. Part of the problem may be that Eisbrenner is beginning to concentrate most fully on a rockier style, with passages sounding as if he has a resonator attached to his f-hole. Additionally, Nordström’s cloning of Ayler – he was Ramblin’ Jack Elliott to Ayler’s Woody Guthrie – seems in this instance to have slowed down his idea flow. Certain phrases that resemble “Ghosts” or “Vibrations” appear over and over again; some licks are mere phrase extenders or hooting overblowing. At one point Nordström’s meandering cause someone – Eisbrenner perhaps? – to chime in with Swing-to-Bop piano comping behind some of his solos. Later on, someone intones a poem in Swedish, which detracts as completely from the cohesive creation as Freeman’s versifying does on the other CD. At the track’s conclusion, Dyck introduces Jack Benny-style, fiddle-string scratching as the drummer reverberates something that sounds very close to garbage can lids. Overall, it’s the near-elastic resonation from Johansson’s cymbals and scraps on his percussion innards and sides which enliven the piece.

Both Facets of the Univers and Berlin Symfonie MIND1968 – 72 are valuable historical documents, although neither quite makes it into the front rank. With a greater range of colors, the Lissack session may have a slight edge, blunted by the recitation and its then-contemporary stance. Johansson’s three sessions attempt more, but also suffer from a too-loose live presentation. Of the three, the 1968 disc has the most to offer musically and sociologically.

-- Ken Waxman

.

Track Listing: Facets: 1. Friendship Next of Kin 2. Facets of the Universe 3. Friendship Next of Kin

Personnel: Facets: Mongezi Feza (pocket trumpet); Mike Osborne (alto saxophone); Kenneth Terroade (tenor saxophone and flute); Earl Freeman (piano, bass and voice); Harry Miller (bass); Selwyn Lissack (drums) and Louis Moholo (incidental percussion)

Track Listing: Berlin: CD I: 1. Berlin Symphonie+ CD II 1. New Nordic light I*+ 2. Fernes Donnern mit Donnerblech 3. Kleiner Marsch 4. Ended mit vibrato und wirbel

Personnel: Berlin: Bengt “Frippe” Nordström (tenor saxophone)*; Norbert Eisbrenner (guitar, alto saxophone and voice); Peter Dyck (cello [CD2 tracks 2-4]); Werner Götz bass) + and Sven-Åke Johansson (drums and voice)

May 18, 2008

BENGT FRIPPE NORDSTRÖM

The Environmental Control Office
Ayler Records aylCD-021/022

Nearly unknown outside of Sweden, in a way tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Bengt Frippe Nordström’s history is more fascinating than the music on this two-CD set.

An important footnote to the Albert Ayler story, Nordström (1936-2000), usually known as Frippe, was the first person to be fully convinced of the American saxman’s talent. He also put his money where his mouthpiece was and paid for Ayler’s first recording in November 1962.

When Ayler returned to the United States, Nordström virtually cloned his playing style to such an extent that he spent years being ignored and insulted by the sort of professional Swedish boppers who also put down Free Jazz. Although encouraged by visitors like American trumpeter Don Cherry Nordström didn’t get to organize his working unit, called Miljövårdsvert or The Environmental Control Office, until the mid-1980s. This 1988, two-CD live set is one of its few recordings. Since then, emerging Scandinavian free improvisers like Mats Gustafsson have acknowledged his pioneering work.

Historically this disc provides a more compelling glimpse of Nordström’s talents, then the sub-par energy pastiche he sprayed out in duet with Sunny Murray in 2000 on an earlier Ayler CD. To be honest, though, Frippe was no Ayler by a long shot, and it’s this lack of inventiveness that weighs down the title track. Although he gamely spits out honks, slurs, split tone and multiphonics in the Ayler tradition, there are times Nordström seems to be operating in his own private world, not even trying to match the musical thrusts of his associates.

Bassist Björn Alke (1938-200) is a sturdy timekeeper who for a time was house bassist at Stockholm’s famous Golden Circle club. Drummer Peeter Uuskyla, who also maintains a steady beat throughout this session, has since recorded with German-Swedish alto saxophonist Biggi Vinkeloe and German Free Jazz reedist Peter Brötzmann

Still, it’s Nordström’s contributions that make the more than 50-minute title track alternately soar and sag. It’s made up of an overly-wide vibrato smearing out slurs, split tones and honks in extended passages that like Ayler’s work includes references to half-remembered children’s song and folk material. There are times, in fact, when Frippe appears to be quoting from “Heart and Soul” [!] and “America the Beautiful” [!!] -- bizarre source material for a Swede.

Recalling Ayler’s later work with violinist Michael Sampson, fiddler Lars Svanteson here appears to be Frippe’s closest associate, constructing counter melodies to complement the saxist’s initial themes and often falling into Aylerian emulations as well. There are times when he too seems to be quoting from nursery rhymes and folk ballads; at other points he scrapes out caustic staccato single lines or slides a descending scratch across the strings. A tower of strength in other contexts, here Alke works very hard to keep the bass line walking -- rarely bringing out his bow -- while Uuskyla’s ratamacues, flams and rolls vary the time from standard jazz accents to free pounding.

To encapsulate: Frippe spends a little too much time offering up his pet licks and Ayler emulations and not enough time listening to the others. The tune would have been much more successful at half its length.

The same sort of scenario plays itself out on the second CD. On “Fripping”, for instance, when the violinist tries to pick up the theme -- which Frippe has been mutating with clarinet squeaks -- and figuratively run with it, the woodwind player suddenly halves the tempo, forcing the whole band to apply the brakes. Frippe double tongues and Svanteson triple stops until a march-like tempo from Uuskyla takes the piece out.

Frippe’s muzzled reed flutters only appear rhythmically appropriate at the end of the sprightly “Fasching”, but the CD’s first track is another matter. Nordström’s puppy love before the Ayler romance was directed towards the clarinet style of American Tony Scott. His relatively compact -- less than seven minute -- version of Scott’s “Swinging in Sweden” played on clarinet is a unique undertaking. Taken mostly in coloratura or a much, much higher register of the woodwind, the piercing split tones give you an idea of how Ayler may have sounded on the licorice stick, if he had played with a sympathetic bop-oriented rhythm section.

Frippe’s footnote status in Ayler’s career is expanded a bit with this set. Historically it shows how the messianic power of Ayler’s playing really affected one saxophonist. But musically it’s only partially fulfilling.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Disc 1: 1. The Environmental Control Office Disc 2: 1. Swinging in Sweden 2. Fripping 3. Fasching

Personnel: Bengt Frippe Nordström (tenor saxophone, clarinet); Lars Svanteson (violin); Björn Alke (bass); Peeter Uuskyla (drums)

September 15, 2003