Label: MPS Records – CRM 640, BASF – CRM 640 Series: Jazz Meets The World Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue, Repress Country: Germany Released: 1971 Genre: Jazz Style: Free Jazz, Modal
An incredible, rowdy super-fusion of modal jazz and traditional North-African Bedouin styles orchestrated by renown Swiss composer / pianist George Gruntz, who after visiting Tunisia in the early sixties became entranced with the Maghreb, returning often in an attempt to learn more about the melodies and rhythms of this ancient and nomadic folklore. The visits eventually culminated in Gruntz assembling the prestige of Bedouin players along with the likes of ECM bassist Eberhard Weber, respected jazz drumer Daniel Humair and Sahib Shihab on sax / flute. Whole thing opens quite tentatively, with both musical worlds feeling each other out before launching into a vibrant assault of zoukra and lively percussion with Gruntz's piano supporting underneath and providing an interesting contrast. The two musical worlds sort of dovetail from there, with the European's modal-jazz moments providing jumping off points for the livelier improvisations from the Bedouin sect, drawing on millennia old nomadic traditions delivered with astonishing synchrony and a deep set understanding of the musical group as a whole. A real eye-opener, this amalgamation of disparate musical traditions and certainly of interest to anyone exploring the more intrepid fringes of the jazz world... (NM/NM - gatefold)
