We Thought About Duke
| We Thought About Duke | ||||
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| Studio album by Franz Koglmann | ||||
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Publication |
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| Label (s) | Has ART / WDR | |||
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Format (s) |
CD |
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Title (number) |
10 |
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running time |
56:25 |
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Studio (s) |
Tic-Music Studio Achau |
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We Thought About Duke is a jazz album by Franz Koglmann and Lee Konitz , which was created from June 6th to 9th, 1994 in a co-production by WDR and the jazz label HatHut Records , recorded by Peter Pfister and released the following year. It is a tribute album to Duke Ellington's music .
The music
Already in the late 1980s, the preoccupation with the jazz tradition moved to the fore for Franz Koglmann; in the album About Yesterday's Ezzthetics (1987) he dealt with the work of the composer George Russell , in A White Line (1989) with the jazz “outsider” Richard Twardzik and in Places of Geometry (1988) with the trumpeter and composer Johnny Carisi .
Koglmann sees Ellington as a source of inspiration who used a multitude of sources in his compositions and arrangements. “The 'Ellington' principle is dismantled and neatly put together to form a 'Koglmann'”, says Konrad Heidkamp in his analysis of the work. “How do you want to do the Ellington again? It's a difficult business. Nothing can be improved there. You can only try to show what Ellington has achieved - and bring that back into the Ellington, the instrumentation, the personal timbre, the way of developing musical forms, ”said Koglmann himself about his intention. The trumpeter, who, like Ellington himself, had written compositions for his various band projects, arranged “variations” here - according to Art Lange in the liner notes - which put Ellington into a new context. Koglmann achieved this with arrangements for two different formations; On the one hand he played with the Monoblue Quartet , consisting of Koglmann, the saxophonist and clarinetist Tony Coe , the guitarist Burkhard Stangl and the bassist Klaus Koch , on the other hand with his Pipe Trio , in which besides Koglmann the trombonist Rudolf Ruschel and the tuba player Raoul Herget participated. Alto saxophone played almost all of the songs by Lee Konitz .
In the track "Love Is in My Heart" (the track was recorded for the first time with a small band under the direction of Barney Bigard ), Koglmann creates variations on the mood of the original by imitating the melancholy of Ben Webster's saxophone solo on his trumpet . The bass line of the arrangement of Juan Tizol's “Pyramid” , played by Raoul Herget on the tuba, was taken over by Koglmann for the Gil Evans arrangement of “La Paloma” for the Claude Thornhill Orchestra in the 1940s; Lee Konitz was involved in this orchestra at the time . The original melody was played by Johnny Hodges , Konitz's idol at the time. The three variations “Thoughts About Duke” composed by Koglmann manage without quotations from Ellington; Konrad Heidkamp hears echoes of Jimmie Lunceford's Ellington interpretations from the “bitchy particles” . Tony Coe and Lee Konitz echoes Johnny Hodges and Paul Gonsalves .
The theme can be heard in the early Ellington classic "The Mooche" from his " Jungle Style " period; Coe and Konitz reflect on the blues theme on alto and clarinet ; the guitarist Burkhard Stangl forms the echo of Lonnie Johnson behind the singing of Baby Cox in the original. The original mood is the same, the timbres are also similar; But Koglmann breaks up the rhythmic and harmonic structures. These are not “normal” variations in a “classical sense”, according to Art Lange in his analysis; in “Zweet Zurzday” (from the “Sweet Thursday” suite ) and in “Love is In My Heart” , Koglmann changes the “pop” character of the originals through bitonal, unsynchronized phrasing and a passage of free improvisation. The last track on the album, “Dirge”, is a rediscovery of Koglmann; Ellington's composer and arranger Billy Strayhorn dropped the piece after the first recording at the Carnegie Hall concert in January 1943; it was never played again by the Duke Ellington Orchestra . Koglmann interprets it with a touch of a Wagner funeral march and Lee Konitz 'solo provides a soft balm.
Album pieces
- "Lament for Javanette" (Ellington) 5:15 - Monoblue Quartet & Lee Konitz
- "Ko-Ko" (Ellington) 4:14 - Pipe Trio & Lee Konitz
- "Zweet Zurzday" (Ellington / Billy Strayhorn ) 8:01 - Monoblue Quartet & Lee Konitz
- "Thoughts About Duke I" (Koglmann) 6:30 - Pipe Trio
- "Thoughts About Duke II" (Koglmann) 4:34 - Monoblue Quartet & Lee Konitz
- "Love Is in My Heart" (Ellington) 5:29 - Monoblue Quartet & Lee Konitz
- "Pyramid" ( Juan Tizol ) 5:52 - Pipe Trio & Lee Konitz
- "Thoughts About Duke III" (Koglmann) 4:33 - Pipe Trio & Lee Konitz
- "The Mooche" (Ellington) 5:49 - Monoblue Quartet & Lee Konitz
- "Dirge" (Billy Strayhorn) 6:08 - Pipe Trio & Lee Konitz
Impact history
In 1996, Die Zeit praised the album as “jazz of chamber music quality”. In the Musikexpress it was said: “Koglmann and Konitz meet at the edges of their respective musical universes, the former acts as conventionally as necessary. The latter as free as possible. ” Richard Cook and Brian Morton gave the album the second highest rating in the Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD .
Edition history
At the end of the 1990s, the 6000 series of the HatHut label was canceled; most of Koglmann's albums from the 1980s and 1990s therefore disappeared from the catalog. Only the Ellington album (previously under: HatART CD 6163) survived the conversion into the new HatOLOGY imprint under the number 543.
Literature / sources
- Richard Cook , Brian Morton : The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD . 6th edition. Penguin, London 2002, ISBN 0-14-051521-6 .
- Alex Ditilh - Liner Notes for "We Thought About Duke" (French)
- Art Lange - Ellington As Idea (Liner Notes to "We Thought About Duke")
- Konrad Heidkamp - Liner Notes for "We Thought About Duke"
References and comments
- ↑ cit. after K. Heidkamp, Liner Notes
- ↑ With the Monoblue Quartet and the pianist Misha Mengelberg , Koglmann had previously recorded the album L'Heure Bleue (HatHut) in 1991, on which the Ellington classic "Black Beauty" had already been interpreted.
- ↑ Koglmann had already worked with Ruschel and Herget on his first HatHut album Schlaf Schlemmer, Schlaf Magritte (1984) and on the 1992 album Canto I-IV .
- ^ After Art Lange, Ellington As Idea
- ↑ cit. like Lange
- ↑ Ulrich Stock, Die Zeit
- ↑ A. Koch, Musikexpress 9/2002
- ↑ cf. Cook & Morton