Search - Leo Cuypers :: Heavy Days Are Here Again (1981)

One of the great but underrated players in Holland's long-standing ICP collective, Leo Cuypers is a pianist whose playing and compositions reconcile melody and avant-garde adventurism. Here, Cuypers heads a reunion with formidable saxophonist Willem Breuker, drummer Han Bennink, and bassist Arjen Gorter. All four were early ICP members, but there was a subsequent parting of the ways over personal and artistic differences. Enjoying a period of free-jazz détente, the quartet reconvened and set up shop as a take-no-prisoners supergroup that was impossible to ignore. As improvisers, the quartet lived up to their billing, effortlessly deconstructing folk melodies, pounding out manic avant-garde volleys, and just mucking about. All the above are cornerstones of outward-looking jazz, but Cuypers's underlying compositions provide a particularly poignant base that enabled the group to create a rare and memorable musical vision. Recording their only album in 1981 after the group's short but busy time together, this reissue is weighty even if it was a largely forgotten page in the canon of the European jazz scene until now. --Tad Hendrickson