Search - Contemporary Jazz Qunitet :: Actions: 1966-1967

Contemporary Jazz Qunitet
Actions: 1966-1967
Genres: Jazz, Pop

Track Listings (5) - Disc #1
1. Action # II
2. Action # III
3. Action # IV
4. Action # V
5. Action # VI

CD Details

All Artists: Contemporary Jazz Qunitet
Title: Actions: 1966-1967
Members Wishing: 0
Total Copies: 0
Label: ATAVISTIC
Release Date: 3/31/2009
Genres: Jazz, Pop
Style: Avant Garde & Free Jazz
Number of Discs: 1
SwapaCD Credits: 1
UPCs: 735286225020, 669910235966, 669910593257

Synopsis

Album Description

Thirty-three years after it was recorded, this document remains startling. It is, on one hand, a treasure unearthed from the halcyon days of free jazz. But more than that, it is what was, at the time, occasionally referred to as "living music"--music in/about/of life. It has some of the flavor of the mid-60's New York avant-garde (prevalent aesthetic at the time), but the Contemporary Jazz Quintet has something very much its own in its group sensibility and especially in its sound. The singing saw is woven into the fabric of the ensemble; it is a deep part of the very soul of the the Quintet, a wailing, sorrowful/joyous sound that echoes the saxophone and trumpet and leads them to squalls of energy and interaction otherwise unforseen. Music of its time. Music of our time. Startling music. Any time.

CD Reviews

1960's free jazz from Denmark, with a twist

Troy Collins | Lancaster, PA United States | 05/29/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Likely unknown by even the most dedicated of free jazz aficionados outside of Denmark, The Contemporary Jazz Quintet was a force to be reckoned with in the halcyon days of post-war Europe's then burgeoning free jazz movement. Espousing the obvious influence of Albert Ayler's mid-1960's recordings, TCJQ works a minor variation on this formula and comes up with an intriguing take on classic 1960's free jazz.

Adopting Ayler's penchant for mid-tempo rubato folk tune structures, TCJQ plays their impassioned free jazz with a twist, their secret weapon; the musical saw. The endless bowing and keening of this old-fashioned instrument invokes an earlier time linking the then contemporary sounds of the quintet with a decidedly old-world aesthetic bridging the gap between the orthodox and the experimental.

While the band's reliance on thematic variation can grow repetitive, their novel approach to instrumental coloration proceeds Ayler's own experiments on bagpipes and Alice Coltrane's early harp and organ workouts. Raspy alto sax and stuttering trumpet weave a dissonant bed of sound with sporadic bass and volatile trap set work contributing a loose, unhurried pulse. But it is the musical saws' endless ghostly keening that separates this recording from of its contemporaries.

"Actions" is a fascinating document of the heyday of European free jazz. Fortunately we have John Corbett's "Unheard Music Series" to provide a window into the inner workings of a scene previously unknown to many outside the European sub-continent."