Seven one-movement ‘concertos’ composed by Michael Mantler bring forth some of his most dramatic and exciting music since the heyday of the Jazz Composer’s Orchestra.
The soloists now are from new music (Majella Stockhausen, Pedro Carneiro) and rock (Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason) as well as jazz. Veteran trombone innovator Roswell Rudd makes an especially powerful showing, and Mantler’s own trumpet feature lights fires. Conductor Roland Kluttig – last heard on ECM conducting Eberhard Weber’s music – draws taut and focused performances from the Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin.
Concertos
Michael Mantler, Bjarne Roupé, Bob Rockwell, Pedro Carneiro, Roswell Rudd, Majella Stockhausen, Nick Mason, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, Roland Kluttig
- 1Trumpet
07:04 - 2Guitar
08:30 - 3Saxophone
06:10 - 4MarimbaVibe
09:53 - 5Trombone
10:07 - 6Piano
12:04 - 7Percussion
05:16
A famously reticent performer, Michael Mantler is also a musician easy to underestimate, yet the sheer unpredictability of his output is there for the discovering, while the quality of his collaborations will be evident from those featured on this disc. … Such a line-up of individual and intensive showcases could so easily have cancelled itself out over the hour-long recital, thus it is a tribute to the contribution of Roland Kluttig’s Neue Musik Berlin that there is never a lack of expressive context. … A disc that can be cordially recommended.
Richard Whitehouse, Gramophone
Vier Dekaden nach seinem epochemachenden Doppelalbum mit dem „Jazz Composers Orchestra“ besinnt sich der Wiener Komponist und Trompeter Michael Mantler auf sein damaliges Konzept freie Formen des Jazz mit klassischen Strukturen zu verbinden. … Neben Solisten wie Roswell Rudd, dem langjährigen Gefährten, und jüngeren Exponenten steht Mantler das Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin zur Seite, sodass sich improvisierende und nicht improvisierende Musiker begegnen. Es gelingen subtile Verbindungen zwischen Improvisation und Komposition. Dabei werden die speziellen Klangfarben der Solisten, auf deren Sound es Mantler ankommt, im Gegensatz zu „virtuoser Gymnastik“ in Bezug zum Kammerensemble gesetzt.
Reinhard Köchl, Jazz’n’More