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CD & Vinyl-LP: Sonorama C-48/ L-48

VARIOUS ARTISTS – Now`s The Time (Deep German Jazz Grooves)

Compiled by Ekkehart Fleischhammer & Stephan Steigleder
Remastering 2010: Jury Lutz, Artwork: Patrick Haase (rab.bit), unreleased artist photos from the collections of
Mara Eggert and Benno Walldorf used by friendly permission of  Lippmann +Rau Musikarchiv in Eisenach.
English and German Liner Notes 2010 by Siegfried Schmidt-Joos and Ekkehart Fleischhammer,
Photo on front cover: Entrance of amateur jazz club “Studio Jazz” in Frankfurt am Main 1956 (Benno Walldorf)
Producer of compilation: Ekkehart Fleischhammer

from eyewitness Siegfried Schmidt-Joos, plus many unpublished photographs from the Lippmann + Rau Music Archive s in Eisenach.


Excerpts from Liner Notes by Siegfried-Schmidt-Joos (February 2010):

There was a time when Jazz in Germany was as popular as today's sophisticated pop music. Not like the superstars:  Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington and others like them would not have sold out sports stadiums and huge halls like U2 or the Rolling Stones. However when bands like the Helmut Brandt Combo or the Michael Naura Quintet toured in the Fifties and Sixties of the last century with their music for the head and heart, they did not attract less German public than contemporary bands like Einstürzende Neubauten or Element of Crime. I know what I am talking about because I was there.
 
Naura and Brandt, both of Berlin, were among the bands that I accompanied on behalf of the domestic unit of the German Jazz Federation (DJF) as a tour manager. We traveled the entire German-speaking countries in a VW bus for fifteen marks expenses per day (which also had to cover the cost for the hotel room), five musicians, the driver and myself. When touring with Naura, Wolfgang Schlüter and me sat in front beside the driver, a bottle of Chantré between us, three musicians on the second bank, in addition another one further back beside the vibraphone, the drums and the luggage, with the bass on the roof.

The longest trip that we made so cramped, between two concerts on two consecutive days, went from Kiel on the Baltic Sea to Spittal an der Drau in Austria beyond the Tauern tunnel, about two thousand miles. But the musicians were accustomed to hardship. When not on tour, they played in  night bars like the infamous "Tabu" holdings of Romy Schneider's stepfather, Hans-Herbert Blatzheim, also called mines. Night after night, often until morning, at least as long as an expense knight still ordered champagne.

Jazz was a tough business. But with the performances, often in universities in front of a young intellectual audience, it unleashed pure enthusiasm. I moderated the concerts, settled up with the organizers for the fee and in case of Naura always insisted that at least a blues was played (which is why I was called the "blues queen" within the band). "Mike` s Blues“ on the CD shows how great they were in it . Of all the German bands of the time, the Michael Naura Quintet came closest to the sturdy black hard bop, as the song "Minority" written by U.S. saxophonist Gigi Gryce proves. It makes sense that this quintet is represented here with two titles.

Further more otherwise one of the remarkable features of the „Deep German Jazz Grooves“ is its security in documentation. As good as any jazz soloist, who played a significant role in Germany during the decade from 1956 to 1965, can be heard. The outstanding and completely unique Helmut Brandt Combo does not perform any of its harmonically advanced cool arrangements, but is presented here as an accompanying ensemble. Therefore the compilation includes the big tune by the most important but tragic jazz voice that Germany ever produced, "Lover Man" by Inge Brandenburg.

The start of this CD/ LP with the track "Domicile" by the Joki Freund & Albert Mangelsdorff Sextet, recorded at the German Jazz Festival in Frankfurt, is entirely programmatic. Frankfurt with its festival was the Mecca of the swinging muse in the Federal Republic of Germany for decades, with different venues between Althoffbau at the Zoo, the large broadcasting studio of the Hessischer Rundfunk and the Domicile du Jazz at the Kleine Bockenheimer Strasse.

In fact Ekkehart Fleischhammer and Stephan Steigleder succeeded with "Now's The Time“ as a representative compilation that reflects "the state of the art“ of jazz in West Germany (with the exception of the large orchestra) from 1956 to 1965. Only the "Ambassador of German Jazz", tenor saxophonist Klaus Doldinger, who became so successful shortly afterwards, might be missed. But at the time where the CD ends, Doldingers impressive career just began in earnest. Still: Three prominent players in his later combo - Ingfried Hoffman (org), Peter Trunk (b), Joe Nay (dr) – already cared for the beat of the Deutsche All Stars.


Siegfried Schmidt-Joos Excerpts from Liner Notes by Ekkehart Fleischhammer
(Sonorama Records/ February 2010):


“Now`s The Time” (Charlie Parker, 1945)

"Domicile" by the Freund-Mangelsdorff sextet, the starting point of this compilation, and a composition by Joki Freund, was incorporated in June 1957 as a dedication to the Frankfurt jazz club of the same name at the Jazz Festival in Frankfurt. A little later Brunswick released this live recording on a now completely disappeared EP that is missing in discographies of Albert Mangelsdorff. The "Four Temperaments” was presented as a work commissioned by the Hessischer Rundfunk to open the fourth Frankfurt Festival and shortly there after also pressed on a single record with extended playing time, its first sentence can be heard on this compiliation. Thanks to these recordings of the Frankfurt Allstars Joki Freund became the most important German jazz composer and arranger making himself a name in the scene.

Quite rare as the EPs are the original copies of the Freund-Mangelsdorff LPs "Tension," "Now Jazz Ramwong" and "Yogi Jazz“, conceptioned by Horst Lippmann and visually designed by Günter Kieser, released from 1963 to 1964 on CBS and becoming some of the greatest European jazz classics immediately. This stage also included "Ease It" by Paul Chambers, recorded in 1965, arranged again by Joki Freund and produced for the Hessischer Rundfunk, this time with Emil Mangelsdorff on flute.

Pianist Michael Naura and his quintet were considered the best German Modern Jazz Band in the late 50‘s and recorded their LP "European Jazz Sounds" for Brunswick in 1963. All five musicians originally studied classical music in East Berlin, before they discovered their passion for jazz performance and due to a lack of engagements moved to the city’s west side. Their version of "Minority" in a fast East Coast pace and the raw Naura composition "Mike`s Blues "can be found on two Telefunken EPs, entitled " Down to Earth "and" Michael Naura Quintet", released 1958 and 1957 in small editions.

There were only little outstanding female jazz singers in Germany. Inge Brandenburg, probably the most impressing voice of the time, won the award for the best European jazz singer at the festival in Juan Le Pins in 1960. Two years before she recorded two EPs for Decca with the Helmut Brandt Combo and the Orchestra Werner Mueller. The song from the first EP, "Lover Man Oh Where Can You Be", an intensely carried forward ballad, is accompanied by Helmut Brandt and Conny Jackel. Her legendary CBS-album "It` s Alright With Me " was recorded with the Gunter Hampel Quartet in 1965 in Berlin. There were no other jazz recordings of the most talented German jazz singer due lacking promotion by the record industry and the sad "Blues Biography“ of the Brandenburg.
 
The talented singer and artist Cecily Forde from Trinidad, who traveled with several well-known jazz ensembles such as Bill Coleman and George Maycool through Europe and was also seen on German television, played a not so important role on the German jazz stage. In the late 50s, she joined the ensemble of the Munich drummer Freddie Brocksieper at the Schwabing dance hall “ Studio 15”. This is when “Music from Studio 15” was recorded, a 10 inch LP released on Columbia,  including the version of "Ain` t Misbehavin`“. As early as 1939 to 1943 Brocksieper played the drums for a Berlin radio station and kept playing for the great dance orchestra of the Stuttgart station until the end of the war. After the war he founded his new band, which established its name soon in jazz clubs and on the radio.

The Hungarian guitarist Attila Zoller moved from Vienna to Frankfurt in the early 50’s, joined the highly successful Jutta Hipp Combo and became the favourite duo partner of Albert Mangelsdorff. They performed together at the third Frankfurt Jazz Festival and toured Germany in 1957 with Bud Shank and Bob Cooper. In 1962 Zoller wrote the piece "Night Bounce" for the Heinrich Boell film "The Bread of Our Early Years" that went to the Cannes Film Festival in the same year as a German contribution. The track was only released on an obscure promotional EP that had been exclusively manufactured for the film festival as a sample copy and without any label information. Attila Zoller's sidemen on this project remained unknown to this day. He later resettled in the U.S. and devoted himself to the free forms of jazz.

In November 1961 exceptional clarinetist Rolf Kuehn, Germany’s best jazz pianist Horst Jankowski, Wolfgang Schlueter and Conny Jackel played at the “Treffpunkt Jazz” in the sold-out Liederhalle Stuttgart. Hampton Hawes and Oscar Peterson were the favourite pianists of Jankowski, who settled down in Stuttgart in 1955, where he joined the Erwin Lehn Orchestra. Even though also directing “lighter” jazz combos and big choirs, he was then in great demand. Quite different from Rolf Kuehn, who is still active in the fields of advanced jazz and gained an international first-class reputation at an early stage, settling in the United States in 1956. Critics soon put him on the same level as his idol Buddy De Franco and it was no other than Benny Goodman, who called Rolf Kuehn to take the place of Goodman in his own big band.

Kuehn and Jankowski presented the featured Kuehn composition "Meeting At The Barberina" with three accompanying musicians, and that same evening, "Mrs. B", the final title of this compilation, played by a twelve piece All Star Formation and written by Joki Freund for the former winners of the poll featured solo instruments in Baden Baden in 1963. Both pieces were recorded for a release on a long lost Columbia LP and become available again with this CD and LP for the first time.

Finally, we give our thanks to the always helpful staff of the jazz archive Eisenach/ L+R Music Archives for permission to reprint previously unpublished photographs from the collections of Mara Eggert and Benno Walldorf. Thanks also to Siegfried Schmidt-Joos for the written presentation of his memories in relation to this compilation. Last but not least thanks to co-compiler Stephan Steigleder for his valuable contribution and of course to Jury Lutz for his open ears under the painstaking restoration of sound. With „Now`s The Time“ we hope to show the well-deserved respect to all featured artists.

Ekkehart Fleischhammer