You don't have to be French
to know that good wine improves with age, but if you want to rush out
and buy a bottle of one of last year's Grands Crus Classés and
drink it tonight, I guess it's your choice. I remember listening to
and thoroughly enjoying Irene Schweizer's Live at Taktlos set when it
inaugurated the Intakt label nearly twenty years ago (gulp), but I can
tell you that today it sounds even better. Pianist Schweizer consolidated
her reputation as a performer of prodigious technique and extraordinary
sensitivity with this set of improvisations on which she was joined
by Maggie Nicols (voice), Joëlle Léandre (bass), George
Lewis (trombone), and percussionists Günter Sommer and Paul Lovens
(Lindsay Cooper also makes a cameo appearance here on the hilarious
"Every Now And Then".. all "jazz standards" should
sound like this). These days, now that the molten lava of free improv
has cooled to form a number of well-charted islands, it's even more
refreshing to rediscover a music that moves effortlessly between high
octane free, Darmstadt pointillism, Cathy Berberian theatrics and even
stride and boogie woogie. It's also a timely reminder of how awesome
these performers were (are): Lewis is all over the trombone, quote John
swinging his fucking ass off unquote Zorn, Léandre hysterical
and inspired, Nicols superbly poised and devastatingly precise, and
Schweizer brings it all together with style. Don't wait another 21 years
to crack open this one: it's ready for drinking right now.
DAN WARBURTON, Paris Transatlantic Magazine, OCTOBER 2005
TIPPS
1984 hatte Irène Schweizer befreundete Jazzerinnen und Jazzer
aus Europa und den USA ans erste Taktlos-Festival eingeladen. Die Neuauflage
des damaligen Mitschnitts illustriert die zeitlose Brillanz dieser Pianistin.
Frank von Niederhäusern, Radiomagazin, Zürich,
33/05
* * * Haute voltige
Réédition du premier microsillon publié par le
très intéressant label suisse Intakt, ce disque propose
des extraits de trois jours de rencontres organisées à
Zürich autour de la pianiste Irène Schweizer. Trois improvisations
(plus un court bonus par Nichols et Lindsay Cooper) sont proposées
dont la première (un duo avec George Lewis) atteint des hauteurs
musicales assez vertigineuses. Irène Schweizer y révèle
notamment des qualités lyriques – et de swing, c'est une
véritable pianiste de jazz – que l'on ne soupçonne
pas toujours chez cette musicienne rigoureuse qui ne cultive pas la
décoration superficielle. Cette facette se retrouve dans les
deux trios qui suivent. Avec l'appui sans faille et toujours inspiré
de Günter Sommer – quelle musicalité chez ce percussionniste
– son jeu nourrit constamment les improvisations vocales de Maggie
Nicols. Le second trio, plus long mais aussi plus sec, heurté,
avec des cassures, montre l'égal engagement et la générosité
de tous; malgré l'éclatement, aucune hésitation,
aucun temps mort ne viennent ternir cette performance. Bien sûr,
le recul du temps qui permet de replacer cette musique dans son époque,
rendra l'auditeur critique moins indulgent envers les vocalises qui
ont moins résisté, surtout celles un peu forcées
de Joëlle Léandre.
Jean Buzelin, Jazzman, Paris, october 2005
Schweizer wurde ja bereits letzten Monat mit einer sehr guten Compilation
gewürdigt. Hier geht’s noch tiefer zu den Wurzeln: diese
legendären Konzertaufnahmen aus der Roten Fabrik Zürich 1984
markieren sowohl den Beginn des enorm wichtigen Taktlos-Festivals wie
auch des Intakt-Labels, das sich zunächst um die Dokumentation
von Schweizers Musik kümmerte und mittlerweile zum wichtigsten
Schweizer Label für improvisierte Musik geworden ist. Das längst
vergriffene Vinyl nun auf CD und in aller Anarchie, Spontanität
und Impulsivität nachhörbar.
Honker, Terz,
11/2005, Deutschland
For a career spanning four
decades, Irene Schweizer's 'Live at Taktlos' was a ground-breaking moment
for a number of reasons. First of all, it marked the physical beginning
of Intakt Records, which this year celebrates its 20th anniversary.
[In fact, a retrospective CD of Irene's work is slated for release later
on this month on Intakt.] On another level, it marked Irene's distinct
collaboration with the cream of the crop of the improvised scene. Musicians
such as trombonist George Lewis, vocalist Maggie Nicols, bassist Joelle
Leandre, percussionists Paul Lovens and Gunter Sommer and pianist Lindsay
Cooper all came together at the Rote Fabrik in Zurich for the Taktlos
Festival in 1984 to put this work on tape. Each of the four pieces features
a different line up of musicians and each is as distinct and individual
as every one of Irene's records. What I love the most about this particular
Irene Schweizer record is the distinct opportunity to be able to hear
her in a different line up within a short span of time.
There is the subtlety of 'First Meeting', where George Lewis trades
hefty trombone overtures alongside Irene's introspective jump-like piano
figurines. Then, we come to 'Lungs and Legs Willing?' during which Maggie
Nicol's mighty vocal chords dominate the scenery. It's actually wonderful
to hear her accompany Gunter Sommer's subtle percussion moves, especially
when the two get into a slower mode. The album closes with a jovial
anthem 'Every Now and Then', where Maggie Nicols proclaims 'I'll be
yours every now and then'.every few months for a few seconds, I'll be
yours'. A perfect closer to an album that is as rich in ideas as it
is in its execution.
Tom Sekowski, Gaz-Eta, Poland 2005
Most independent recording
labels have their bellwether artists, those musicians on the roster
central to the label’s identity and mission. Hatology has Joe
McPhee. Peter Brötzmann is commonly associated with FMP. Tzadik
revolves around John Zorn. In the case of Intakt it’s Swiss pianist
Irène Schweizer. Schweizer has been playing actively for nearly
half a century and the last several decades of her career have been
faithfully documented on Intakt. Ideally, labels and artists share a
reciprocal relationship. It’s the charge of the label to act as
advocate for the artist and the job of the artist to supply the label
with meaningful creative capital. Schweizer’s partnership with
Intakt represents a model of this sort of mutually sustaining arrangement.
Irène Schweizer
Live at Taktlos
Intakt
1984, reissued 2005
Schweizer’s Live at Taktlos—taped in 1984 at the first annual
incarnation of the Swiss festival bearing the same name—marked
the first LP release on Intakt. Reissued on CD the album presents the
pianist in three extremely fertile situations with fellow improvisers
from Europe and America. Peter Pfister, most-renowned these days for
his impeccable engineering work for Hatology, handled the recording
and while the fidelity isn’t blemish free it still captures the
players with true-to-life sound. The disc's three main pieces accord
ample space for extended free improvisation, the longest among them
swallowing up a good twenty minutes. “Every Now and Then,”
a manically-paced match-up of vocalist Maggie Nicols with pianist Lindsay
Cooper works as coda. “First Meeting” teams Schweizer with
trombonist George Lewis for a lengthy extemporization that is startling
in its degree of close convergence, so much so that parts, particularly
the puckishly tuneful conclusion, sound pre-composed. A wealth of unorthodox
patterns and phrases pour forth from both players, often at telegraphic
speed, but the whole constructed from these parts never loses a guiding
sense of symmetry.
Less easily accessible is the trio of Nicols, Schweizer and Günter
Sommer who convene on the enigmatically-titled “Lungs and Legs
Willing?” Nicols’ operatic, largely abstract vocals soar
and swoop, leaving pianist and drummer to shape a sequence of ground-swelling
collisions, soft and stentorian, that serve as terrestrial counterpoint
in a crowded exchange. “Trutznachtigall” delivers an even
most challenging experience via what on the surface seems the most conventional
instrumentation. Bassist Joëlle Lèandre brings her full
repertoire of capricious techniques to the event, sawing down tree trunks
with her bow, punishing her strings with chest-pounding pizzicato flurries
and, if the snapshot in the CD booklet is to be believed, even playing
her instrument upside down. Her gruff and often outrageous vocals add
to the turbulent atmosphere, veering from banshee wails to romantic
cooing and back again. Lovens’ percussive idiosyncrasies fit right
in, the fractious, but precisely intentional clatter from his kit complimenting
Schweizer’s frequent forays under her piano’s hood to pluck
and damper hammered strings. Attaching a play-by-play to all the delirious,
irreverent action and reaction ends up a pointless pursuit within mere
minutes. A marker for various partnerships that have since made good
on their promises tenfold, this music still packs an enjoyable jolt
on par with its initial release twenty years ago.
Derek Taylor, All About Jazz, USA, November 2005
Réédition d'un
album qui fut le premier du label suisse Intakt. Il s'agit de pièces
enregistrées au cours des trois jours du festival de Taklos à
Zurich, en février 1984. Trois improvisations + bonus de la pianiste
Irène Schweizer, spécialiste de la musique improvisée
européenne. Elle dialogue d' abord avec George Lewis: tb. Puis
en trio avec la vocaliste Maggie Nicols qui s'envole et le batteur Günter
Sommer très présent. On continue en trio avec Joëlle
Léandre: cb, et Paul Lowens: dr. Pour finir avec quelques glapissements
de Maggie Nicols soutenue par le pianiste Lindsay Cooper. De l'improvisation
totalement libre où l'originalité est constante.
Jazz Notes, Paris, Décembre 2005
Kurt
Gottschalk, Signal to Noise, USA/Canada, Winter 2006
Ayumi Kagitani, Way Out West 97, Japan, April 2017
To Intakt Website: home
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