On occasion imagining themselves with lower standing than so-called classical composers, improvising musicians create program music, hoping to theoretically reach a similar elevated level – especially if the results are presented in concert. Many times this yearning expressed in semi-notated works is further staunched by utilizing strings and other orchestral instruments for similar purported prestige.
Musik für Kammerensemble has no back story. It’s nearly 74 minutes of uncompromising contemporary chamber music played by an unusually-constituted ensemble of clarinet, piano, tuba, vibraphone and Christoph Weinheimer doubling flute and violin. Homburg-born multi-instrumentalist Weinheimer and Frankfurt-born clarinetist Ole Schmidt are involved in dance, theatre and chamber projects as is Onasbrück-born pianist Robert Schleisiek. The first two helped create a 24-hour improvisation involving chamber ensembles and soloists, as well as computer-generated sound production and player piano compositions. On the other hand, Cologne-based tubaist Carl Ludwig Hübsch regularly works with improvisers like trombonist Wolter Wierbos from the Netherlands, while vibist Tom Lorenz, from Dusseldorf has played with local jazzers such as bassist Dieter Manderscheid and as a soloist with the WDR Big Band.
There’s no chance of a “Flying Home” or “Bag’s Groove” quote appearing here when the metal bars are struck with tremolo vibrations however. Patterns resembling tam-tams or tubular bells are more likely to be heard, though most are probably courtesy of Lorenz. Often he’ll meld busy rubato arpeggios with the piano, although most of the pieces are built on pastel tinctures rather than any sense of dynamics.
On tunes such as the nearly 11½-minute track five, Schleisiek cross fades ghostly piano chords including single string microtones, but the end result is more descriptive than some of Yedid’s more restrained portions of Passions. Here too, the vibist gradually reveals a simple line as the tuba burbles pedal point, the clarinet extends smears to split tones and fiddler Weinheimer creates circular spiccato textures.
For his part Schmidt’s simple trills relate back to American chamber jazzman Jimmy Giuffre and the minimalist reedists who followed him. Yet even with Schleisiek’s patterned, unfussy piano lines and the occasional cymbal pop, the effect skirt preciousness because of Hübsch’s sonorous and burnished pitch-sliding. Should the sort of romanticism that affected some of the tracks on Opus threaten to arise here, then it’s almost literally blown away by the tubaist and high-pitched sul ponticello fiddle squeaks.
The more than 23½-minute final track detaches the five even more from impressionism, as Hübsch moves from a stirring display of buzzed lip growls, valve twisting and blocked tubes to effervescent counterpoint with chalumeau clarinet lines. When these accelerate to harsh whistling from the reed and cavernous pressure from the brass beast, the constricted tones define POST NO BILLS’ parameters better than any written libretto. Concluding with thick, subterranean tuba snorts and polyharmony from the others the CD confirms that in the proper hand instant compositions can make more of an impression than formal ones.
Ken Waxman at JazzWeekly