Nicola Conte presents Cosmic Forest - The Spiritual Sounds Of MPS

Label: MPS Records (LC01666) Distribution: EDEL / Kontor New Media Release: 21 September 2018

Cat-No. CD: 0212256MS1 UPC CD: 4029759122562 Cat-No. LP: 0212269MS1 UPC LP: 4029759122692

www.mps-music.com

Info und press photos: http://www.herzogpromotion.com

Track-Listing: 1. The Third Wave – Maiden Voyage (Here And Now), 2. Nathan Davis – Evolution (Happy Girl), 3. / – A Day In Vienna ( A Day In Copenhagen), 4. VA Meets India – Yaad (Jazz Meets India), 5. – Djerbi (Noon In Tunisia), 6. Quartett – Never Let It End (Never Let It End), 7. Smoke – Shelda (Everything), 8. Michael Naura Quartett - Soledad De Murcia (Call), 9. MPS Rhythm Combination & Brass – Timbales Calientes (My Kind Of Sunshine), 10. El Babaku – El Babaku (Live At Jazz Gallerie), 11. Hannibal & Sunrise Orchestra – Revelation (Hannibal), 12. Tony Scott & The Indonesian Allstars – Burungkaka Tua (Djanger Bali), 13. Dave Pike Set - Raga Jeeva Swara (Infra-Red)

Cosmic Forest – The Spiritual Sounds of MPS

“Cosmic Forest” takes us on a spiritual journey through the musical universe of Musik Produktion Schwarzwald (Black Forest Music Production), the most important label of the 1960’s and 70’s. Alongside such younger firms as ECM, Enja, and ACT, its catalogue of around 500 albums remains to this day one of the most interesting, comprehensive, multi-textured collections of “jazz made in Germany”. German businessman Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer (HGBS), owner of the German electronics company SABA in Villingen/ Schwenningen, founded a record company in 1965 under the same name and equipped it with its own recording studio. Three years later he renamed the company MPS. The exceptional recording equipment and premium-quality record pressings, which were usually made in editions of 500 to 1000 LPs, are to this day regarded as “state of the art”. Consequently, SABA/MPS remains one of the most important jazz labels for both vinyl collectors and fans.

There are still little-known gems to discover within the MPS catalogue. For instance, Cosmic Forest curated by Nicola Conte. Cosmic Forest is a compilation that highlights some of the most compelling “spiritual jazz” recordings from 1965 to 1975. Conte, a world-renowned Italian musician and producer, as well as a passionate DJ and record collector, is a connoisseur of European jazz with an astounding ability to dig a little deeper when it comes to arranging such a compilation. In this case, he concentrated on the spiritual highpoints of the MPS catalogue, highlighting both well-known and obscure musical treasures, while connecting disparate pieces through a personal common thread. The choice of individual titles and the flowing character of their arrangement lend the album a quality of timelessness, while showcasing the breadth of the entire “cosmic jazz collection” within the MPS archives.

Herzog Promotion | Spritzenplatz 12 | 22765 | t. +49(0)40/88 172 885 To explain how the Spiritual Sounds from the Black Forest came into existence we need to first take a trip back to the year 1965 and the release of John Coltrane’s legendary LP A Love Supreme. In his liner notes, Coltrane formulates his spiritual acknowledgements: “Words, sounds, speech, men, memory, thoughts, fears and emotions-time-all related…all made from one…all made in one.” At the time, many American jazz musicians set off on an interreligious path or a spiritual journey looking inward. They described their innovative new jazz sounds with attributes such as self-realization, cosmic unification, and creative liberation. Coltrane’s 1961 album, My Favorite Things, was in many ways the movement’s beginning. It elevated modal improvisation to jazz music’s guiding light. Modes are musical scales. They may be so- called Church modes, such as the Dorian mode; they can derive from classical Indian or Arabian music traditions or any one of the planet’s diverse folk cultures. The idea was to play over a single mode for an extended number of bars instead of having to play over a continually changing set of chords and resultant scales, as was the case on most standard compositions. With his masterpiece Milestones on the 1958 album of the same name, had already begun the exploration of modes as a distinct musical concept. He continued a year later with his groundbreaking album Kind of Blue. On his album My Favorite Things, John Coltrane, who was a member of both of Davis’ groups, exploited the new-found freedom of modal playing while at the same time adding a spiritual aspect to the music.

Different Jazz compositions from this time were connected by a common thread. Pieces such as Albert Ayler’s “Spiritual Unity”, Ornette Coleman’s “Peace”, Sun Ra’s “Sun Myth”, as well as countless other modal jazz compositions all heralded the message “It’s All One”, promising individual salvation through spiritual unity, and love and peace for the world. As jazz musicians increasingly came into contact with music from around the globe, from Japan to Africa, and from Brazil to India, their music began to reflect these influences and their music took on new musical characteristics. The freedom from time signatures and the breakthrough of atonality are two examples that serve to illustrate this point. Jazz now opened itself up to musical cultures that were previously deemed unsuitable for jazz compositions. It was a time of spiritual strength and musical magic – a journey through yet unfamiliar cultures as well as a journey of self-discovery toward the inner self.

MPS’ founder Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer (HGBS) together with producer, promoter and organizer Joachim-Ernst Berendt recognized this trend re-oriented the label accordingly. In contrast to HGBS, the cosmopolitan Berendt increasingly focused on and the avant- garde. Because of his highly regarded publications and television programs, he was one of the few German jazz producers, whose opinion was seen as final on all subjects related to Jazz. His friend, the Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell provided Berendt with first spiritual insights into the Afro-Brazilian music culture. As a result, Berendt initiated the new SABA LP series “Jazz Meets The World” and, as director of the 1967 Berlin Jazz Days, he tied it to the first World-Jazz festival in Berlin’s Philharmonic Hall. The leading US jazz critic Nat Hentoff described the event as “Europe’s, if not the world’s leading jazz festival.” Many English and Japanese fans traveled to the festival on specially charted flights.

Berendt was in charge of many more MPS “World” and “Spiritual Jazz” productions throughout the mid-1970’s. We owe it to his engagement that we have a total of eight titles in this present compilation that originate from the “Jazz Meets The World” series and other rare LPs. Berendt won the American jazz magazine Down Beat’s prestigious Poll in the Producer category. The recording industry also recognized the marketing potential of ideas that Berendt had pioneered. Under labels such as World Music, New Age, and Meditation Music, these ideas continue to shape the Music industry to this day. During an MPS warehouse sale in the summer of 2009, it became clear how revered Berendt’s productions still are: 150 interested parties from across the globe crammed into HGBS’s former offices next to the legendary MPS recording studio and spent the next two days haggling over rare original discs in mint condition. “A once in a lifetime opportunity”, as an excited Swedish attendee put it. Later that same year the MPS studio, with its original high-end equipment still in place, was designated as a cultural heritage site.

Now let's take a look at Nicola Contes's refined track selection. As an introduction to the "Spiritual Sounds", we hear "Maiden Voyage" in a version with psychedelic flare, spherical

Herzog Promotion | Spritzenplatz 12 | 22765 Hamburg | t. +49(0)40/88 172 885 choral singing, modal flute lines and a voluminous drum sound. The Third Wave a Philippine vocal group composed of five sisters between the ages of 13 and 19, had first proven their worth at the Monterey Jazz Festival. In 1969, HGBS invited the group and their producer, George Duke, to the MPS studio in Villingen. Their LP Here And Now, is actually centered around soul and jazz-pop, so the hymnal-meditative adaptation of the Herbie Hancock classic is a real exception. Jazz critic Leonard Feather prophesied that the new group would "create a stir in the jazz world in the near future.” However, the project was discontinued a short time later.

Regarding his motivation as a jazz musician, saxophonist and flutist Nathan Davis confessed to a Washington D. C. conference in 1976: "What I really care about is spirituality." He came to Europe for the first time with an American Army band in 1960 and moved to Germany two years later. Davis along with his friend trumpeter recorded the album Happy Girl in Villingen in 1965 for the SABA label. In his liner notes, producer Berendt describes the two horn lines on "Evolution" as “so cleverly written that it sounds as if a big band were playing". Davis' interest in twelve-tone music and the compositions of Bela Bartok are also evident. Looking back at the recording session in an interview in 2012, he remarked: "We were very surprised when a check was handed over to us, although we were not even finished with the recordings. I simply could not believe it. In America, we always had to chase after the money.”

There is also a hip horn frontline on A Day In Vienna", an up-tempo tune that ends A Day In Copenhagen, the album from jazz greats tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon and trombonist Slide Hampton. Trumpeter fills out the frontline, while the leading European bassist at that time, Denmark’s Niels-Henning Ørsted-Pedersen and drummer take care of the foundation. Hampton dedicated his modal composition to the ORF’s (Austria’s Public Broadcasting Corporation) Jazz Workshop in Vienna. Pianist adds syncopated backing to the hypnotic groove of this 1969 recording. The aesthetics of the piece fit seamlessly into the new context of spiritual jazz.

Jazz Meets India was originally a Berendt project for the 1967 Donaueschinger Music Days. It combines Swiss pianist Irene Schweizer’s jazz trio with French tenor saxophonist , German trumpet player and sitar player Dewan Motihar’s Indian trio. Part of the "Jazz Meets The World" series, this SABA LP is an intense communicative encounter between European jazz music and the traditional sounds of India. The North Indian word "Yaad" conveys a sense of love and loneliness, an apt description of Motihar’s meditative song. The Indian concept of “Nada Brahma” – “God is sound and sound is God” – permeates the music. Berendt’s popular book, first published in 1983, “The World is Sound: Nada Brahma” delves into this philosophy.

Swiss pianist George Gruntz was Berendt’s successor as head of the Berlin Jazz Days. Noon In Tunisia became the fifth album in Berendt's "Jazz Meets The World" series. Produced in Villingen in 1967, it features jazz musicians , Jean Luc Ponty, and combined with a quartet of Bedouin musicians, and is the first encounter of modal jazz with Tunisian music. Berendt traveled through North Africa for weeks in order to single out the appropriate native musicians for the recordings. "Djerbi" is a traditional meditative dance from the island of Djerba, and is part of the "Maghreb Cantata", a Gruntz composition based on Bedouin rhythms and melodies. Sounding as if he had an intimate knowledge of the jazz ballad, the Bedouin Sadi El Nadi improvises a solo on the Nai, the bamboo flute played in the region.

Berendt also worked as tour manager on the exceptional trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff’s 1964 tour of Asia for the Goethe Institute. Mangelsdorff would later be called “Germany’s Ambassador of Jazz”. Following the tour, Mangelsdorff collaborated on different themes they had picked up in Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and India. The piece "Never Let It End" from the MPS record of the same name was recorded in March 1970 at the Walldorf Studio in Frankfurt, Germany, with Berendt as the producer. The production was shaped by the 12th German Jazz Festival, during which free jazz was also played, and which took place just before the album was recorded. At the heart of the LP are collective improvisations and a diversity of styles, played by Mangelsdorff’s classic quartet with saxophonist Heinz Sauer, bassist Günter Lenz and drummer Ralf Hübner. Written in the Phrygian mode, and conceived

Herzog Promotion | Spritzenplatz 12 | 22765 Hamburg | t. +49(0)40/88 172 885 of as a tribute to the Andalusian flamenco dancer La Singla, Mangelsdorff’s composition shines with a spiritual Iberian hue.

The meditative, Fender Rhodes-imbued "Shelda", a composition by pianist Curtis Clark, is a prime example of the outstanding MPS productions that were produced abroad. HGBS discovered the nine-member band Smoke in Palo Alto during one of his visits to California. Led by composer and vibraphonist Woodi Webb, the band’s Afro-American members were studying at various California Universities at the time. Webb’s second MPS LP was produced in September 1971 at the Wally Heider studio in San Francisco and carries the spiritual title Everything as a search for unity of the whole within the totality of sounds.

By the mid-1950’s, pianist Michael Naura along with his longtime partner, vibraphonist Wolfgang Schlüter, were playing modern jazz in a variety of ensembles. In 1971, they recorded the progressive rock, fusion-oriented LP Call with bassist Eberhard Weber and drummer . The entire LP was produced without the band playing in the usual mode of choruses. "Soledad De Murcia", the solitude of the city of Murcia, is a loosely-arranged Spanish-tinged theme with circular melodies and surging soundscapes. The Fender Rhodes tones support the restrained rock feel of the piece, which according to Naura is a tribute to Miles Davis, who "always sounds a bit Spanish, even in his most recent, rock-influenced recordings”.

Trombonist and bandleader Peter Herbolzheimer founded the Rhythm Combination & Brass in 1969, and in so doing created a new big band style rooted in mainstream jazz with audible echoes of rock and sounds of Asia and Latin America. Two years later their first album, My Kind of Sunshine, was recorded by MPS during two concerts at the Jazzclub, “the Domicile”. The band included international stars such as Orsted-Pedersen, Dusko Goykovich, , and . In the forceful "Timbales Calientes", the powerful brass ensemble hovers over a tightly woven Latin percussion. The breathtaking solos are from on flute and Danish trumpeter .

One of the few German venues that organized World Jazz concerts at that time was the Jazz Gallery in Berlin, managed by the Dave Pike Set’s bass player Hans Rettenbacher. In 1971 Berendt produced a live recording of the five-piece ensemble El Babaku at the Jazz Gallery. The group was a project assembled by American percussionist Billy Brooks. Brooks had moved to Europe in 1964 and subsequently played with the likes of trumpeter Dusko Goykovich and Spanish pianist . The African-rooted, ritualistic El Babaku is the group’s theme song, with Brooks playing bass block flute and leading the call and response over an hypnotic rhythmic foundation. Brooks says it best; “The ecstasy I get in music comes from group drumming. It’s more than musical – it’s spiritual.”

Following a recommendation from Gil Evans, Berendt came into contact with American avant- garde trumpeter Hannibal Marvin Peterson. Influenced by Eastern mysticism, Peterson named his band Sunrise Orchestra. Hannibal explains: "We ourselves are the sunrise, and in our timeless inner light, it never dies.” Pianist Michael Cochrane’s composition “Revelation" features two sets of percussion and the ’s cascading lines, along with interjections from the cello and whistles, establishing a rhythmically enthralling foundation on which Hannibal's improvisations unfold with a religious strength and depth. The corresponding 1975 MPS album Hannibal, was recorded in the Bauer Studios in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

Legendary American jazz clarinetist Tony Scott lived in Asia from 1959 to 1965. During that time, he taught and influenced virtually every jazz musician throughout the Far East, from Thailand to Taiwan and from Indonesia to Japan. For his 1967 "Jazz Meets the World" album Djanger Bali, he teamed up with the Indonesian All-Stars. The All-Stars had been touring Europe, including a performance with Scott at the Berlin Jazz Days. Their form of jazz reflects the musical culture of the Indonesian archipelago as well as influences from the Asian mainland. The most important soloist of the group was Chinese pianist Bubi Chen who “Downbeat” had called “The Art Tatum of Asia”. After Chen's sparkling impressionistic intro on the Indonesian folk song "Burungkaka Tua", Javanese saxophonist Marjono’s soulful flute solo comes to the fore, communicating the spiritual connections between the Blues and Indonesian folk music.

Herzog Promotion | Spritzenplatz 12 | 22765 Hamburg | t. +49(0)40/88 172 885

Through a contact at SFB (Radio Free Berlin), American vibraphonist Dave Pike moved to Germany in 1968 where he remained until 1973. He met the Viennese bassist Hans Rettenbacher in Berlin, and guitarist and drummer Peter Baumeister in Frankfurt at a concert with Tony Scott. These meetings constituted the birth of the Dave Pike Set. In an interview from 2012, Pike, who died in 2015, remembers that time: "It immediately clicked. We felt like the Jazz-Beatles." After having been together for only one week, the band received a record contract from HGBS; they became one of the most successful acts for the label. Based on the classical music culture of Hindustan, and highlighting Kriegel’s talent on the sitar, Rettenbacher’s "Raga Jeeva Swara", was the highlight of the album Infra-Red. As a gentle spiritual return from the MPS cosmos back into hard reality, it’s a wonderful conclusion to Nicola Conte’s compilation!

Ekkehart Fleischhammer – Translation by Marty Cook

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