Listen!: Deit's Choice Pt. 6

For those of you who have been following the blog for the last couple of weeks, you are already aware that the music that has been covered here is that of non-English speaking countries. So far in our miniature jaunt around the global music community, we've seen various styles of music from France, as well as a lot of works from Italian composers, and a little bit this week from Germany this week. To close out the German portion of our trip, I decided to end on an upbeat note with some dancefloor jazz.



Between Or Beyond The Black Forest 2: Various Artists

The evolution of jazz in America has been a fascinating journey. As we have progressed through time, the styles and sub-genres of jazz have increased almost exponentially since its birth, inspiring and motivating creative musicians all over the globe. While the lion's share of jazz history is obviously American, some of the most fascinating histories come from places and labels that many of us have never heard of. One such story is that of a "tiny" label from Germany called SABA/MPS Records.

The creation of SABA/MPS was actually born from the private passion of a German industrialist named Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, who was the grandson of large scale radio manufacturer Hermann Schwer. The elder Schwer was the founder of a company called SABA, which in the 1960's decided that they wanted to hire German musicians of the era to record music for their new automobile tape players. Hans Georg, a closet musician himself, took on the task of producing these recordings in one of the most technologically advanced recordings studios of its era. After SABA was sold to American media giant GTE, Brunner-Schwer threw himself completely into creating the new record label MPS(musik produktion schwarzwald), which has the distinction of being the first independent record label in Germany's history. MPS became well known among enthusiasts for its interesting and progressive albums, not only attracting the best European talent to record for them, but pulling well known names such as Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Baden Powell among many others. All told, the MPS label which ceased record production some time in the early 1980's released over 700 records. Unfortunately, MPS was bought out by Polydor, and continuing to release the gems from the MPS label was not a priortity. It was not until the last few years that a group of intrepid music historians began making it known that there was indeed a devoted market for these recordings, which has resulted in a deluge of reissues for those of us not lucky enough to get onto them the first time. Finding the original works from MPS can be a bit of a chore. They are either hard to find, or the reissues are expensive. Luckily, a current German label, Crippled Dick Hot Wax did us the favor of releasing not one, but two compilations which introduce us to these nearly lost songs.

Between Or Beyond The Black Forest 2 is a fantastic primer outlining a very specific tone of the MPS output, focusing far more on the upbeat groove oriented work known to most people as "dancefloor jazz". This particular permutation of the jazz formula is an odd hybrid comprised of traditional jazz fused with elements of funk, rock, and the occassional touch of disco.

The songs on this collection are a very interesting mixture of styles. To get it out of the way, there are a couple of cuts that don't work well in my opinion. The George Duke number,"Faces In Reflection" has some interesting synth work, but the annoyingly unemotional vocals and overall cheesy R & B feel are slightly obnoxious to put it mildly. Another song that has similar problems is Jasper Van't Hof's"Poobli", which relies a little too heavily on mostly watered down keyboard riffs and the overly smooth and God awful incessant noodling of the sax in the early going. Strangely, the best aspects of this marathon tune, which clocks in at an epic 13:03, come far later in the open stretches of the middle where the the group really allows the song to breathe, letting the amazing rhythm section to take control and for the keyboard player to do some interesting soloing. Essentially, it has great potential at moments, but it could stand to be far more focused.

Fortunately, that covers the weaknesses. The rest of the tunes here are a real joy and paint a complex and diverse picture of the many personalities that made the MPS label what it was. We have artists like Rimona Francis on the opener "Bulgarian Beans", a wild post-modern take on wordless jazz vocals. Francis' voice is almost like some sort of extra-terrestrial instrument unto itself, dipping into almost baritone territory before catapulting itself into the upper registers. The song "Knock Out" by pianist Deiter Reith, who gives a blinding ten minute workout on the Fender Rhodes going toe to toe with a banging sax/bass combination that is slightly reminiscent of the funkier side of Stevie Wonder. The aforementioned Jasper Van't Hof redeems himself on the far shorter and less spacy "Titty-Chickie-Fitterburg". Van't Hof blends his expertise on the keyboards with the traditional grand piano playing of Martial Solal over the masterfully loose shuffle groove of Alphonse Mouzon. Things take a slight turn for the Afro-Cuban on the next track, "Frogdance" by trombonist Peter Herbolzheimer. Over hollow bongos beats, Deiter Reith cooks with a scintillating organ groove injected with the lively brass of Herbolzheimer. Drummer Charly Antolini weighs in with his "Scratches", a breakbeat laden track with a solid trumpet/organ combo complimenting him, this song is all screaming confidence and strut, guaranteed to incinerate any dancefloor it comes close to. Roland Kovac's "Powerstart" is probably the least overtly funky song of the batch, but it's a nice departure from the rest of the set, trading the headbobbing rhythm sections for a darker, big band number with a distinct Duke Ellington flair, much like the soundtrack to the Otto Preminger film "Anatomy of a Murder".

As was mentioned earlier, there were several non-Europeans who recorded for MPS, and some of their efforts are collected here as well. Nelson Riddle, best known for his score to the 1960's Batman series, is here with "Volcano's Daughter", which utilizes a funky organ supplemented by brass and strings, which give off a very large, brash sound that wouldn't potentially have been out of place on the soundtrack for Shaft. American vibraphonist Dave Pike also makes an appearence with "Baiafrock/Volker", a smooth but bouncy cut with a persistent fuzzed out guitar adding an extra layer of interesting sonic texture underneath everything.

I'm quite glad to see that labels such as Crippled Dick Hot Wax give this much love to what could have ended up being an apocryphal part of the genre. They are so invested in the subject of non-American jazz that they actually published a book titled "Jazzin' The Black Forest", a guide to the entire history and catalog of the MPS label. Anyone interested can find the book through Dusty Groove America.



Jazzin' The Black Forest: Guide to SABA/MPS Records

Another acheivement of note for CDHW, is that they have actually extended the series beyond that of the MPS label, and branched out to find other obscure jazz gems from Scandanavia in "Between or Beyond The Northern Lights", and Eastern Europe in "Between or Beyond The Iron Curtain"





The spirit of jazz is indeed universal, and as illustrated by this compilation, sometimes it happens to manifest itself in the most unlikely of places with the most unexpected and amazing results.