Saturday, September 23, 2023

Koller IDaunerfication



Free Sound & Super Brass - Ulla M.


We'll continue backloading September with more European things, this time drifting just across the border from Germany into Austria.

This one's celebrating its 47th anniversary today, and my oh my is this a band. If you were waiting for the stars to come out, well here you are.

In terms of the Euro Jazz & Fusion of the 1970s, there are no less than five players here that would be in the Hall Of Fame of such a category.

The other guys don't exactly suck either.

If I had to describe what these cats are up to in this show, I'd say that if there were such a genre as European Spiritual Jazz, this would be it.

Really this is a combination of two bands, so it's almost like 47 for the price of one. Or none, because your money's no good here and it's all on the house.

Co-led by reedmaster Hans Koller and keys deity Wolfgang Dauner, this is as lush, sonorous and free as this sort of music gets.

Topnotch playing from trumpet gurus Ack van Rooyen and Kenny Wheeler, as well as Albert Mangelsdorff manning the 'bone, is in abundance for the entire 80 minutes.

And as I said, the rest of the group cooks up to the standard of the marquee guys, especially the rhythm section, which steers the assembled aggregation into the intersection of Big Band grandeur and gritty cop-show-theme street funk, and with a ton of quiet and dynamic bits between.

So FFS already, let's hear the FS&SB get down at the peak of their game.


Free Sound & Super Brass
Wiener Konzerthaus
Vienna, Austria
9.23.1976

01 introduction by Hans Koller
02 Opening
03 Ulla M.
04 Jenissai
05 Akt, eine Treppe hinabsteigend, Nr. 2
06 Song One
07 Yin
08 Dorffballade

Total time: 1:18:52

Hans Koller - soprano & sopranino saxophones
Wolfgang Dauner - keyboards
Robert Demmer, Ernst Lamprecht, Ack van Rooyen, Kenny Wheeler & Friedrich Hujer - trumpets
Herbert Joos & Robert Pollitzer - flugelhorns
Albert Mangelsdorff, Erich Kleinschuster, Robert Dodge, Rudolf Josel & Roy Deuvall - trombones
Jürgen Wuchner - bass
Janusz Stefanski - drums

256/48 mp2 file, from a 2018 rebroadcast on Austrian radio's "OE1 In Concert"
spectral analysis goes past 20 kHz, so although this is an off-air capture it is essentially equivalent to a preFM source
converted to 16/44 CD Audio & edited by Lewojazz in 2018
ending of Track 08 very slightly edited -- with volume increased +6 dB throughout -- by EN, September 2023
443 MB FLAC/direct link


I'll be back soon enough to round out the month with yet more fusionized and funkolicious fare, but stay in the moment and get your Koller ID Daunerized in the meantime, you know?--J.

12.30.1935 - 1.10.1920   2.12.1921 - 12.22.2003