Open Secrets | |
---|---|
Studio album by | |
Released | 1988 |
Recorded | January 1988 |
Studio | FMP Studio, Berlin |
Genre | Free jazz |
Label | FMP FMP 1190 FMP CD 132 |
Producer | Jost Gebers |
Open Secrets is a solo bass album by Peter Kowald. It was recorded in January 1988 at the FMP Studio in Berlin, and was released on LP later that year by the FMP label. [1] [2] FMP reissued the album on CD in 2008. [3]
Review scores | |
---|---|
Source | Rating |
The Penguin Guide to Jazz | [4] |
All About Jazz | [5] |
The authors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings called the album "a remarkable record," and stated: "though the technical range is impressive... it never draws attention to itself... but makes a steady progress through areas that sound predetermined but which are encountered according to chance-driven logic that throws up challenging transitions and juxtapositions." [4]
In a review for All About Jazz , Nic Jones wrote: "Open Secrets presents the sound of a formidable technician without letting that dubious asset get in the way of musical expression. The results are compelling... He exploits not only the double-bass' standard vocabulary but also extraneous noises too, making for a compact statement of its potential as a solo instrument." [5]
Writing for Point of Departure, Francesco Martinelli commented: "There are so many different things going on on this recording that time flashes by and at the end one cannot wait to hear it again... Pump up the volume in order to fully appreciate the dark, resonant sound of Peter Kowald's bass (and voice) in this exceptional snapshot of his life and art." [6]
Bill Meyer of Dusted Magazine wrote: "Open Secrets... is so much more communicative than your average free improv solo recital. You can hear a world of experience boiled down to what can be sounded within a curved wooden box and four big strings... this record's nine tracks are marvelously focused, the musical ideas succinctly articulated, the soul behind them ever evident... There's a calm in these performances that contrasts with the frenzy elsewhere in Kowald's discography and makes it feel even more special." [7]
In an article for Paris Transatlantic, Clifford Allen remarked: "Each of these vignettes contains a heavy dose of personality, and you can hear Kowald the human being throughout. Man, fingers, arms, bow, strings, and two large bodies unifying in sonic space – how much more open can you get?" [8]
All compositions by Peter Kowald.
Peter Brötzmann was a German jazz saxophonist and clarinetist regarded as a central and pioneering figure in European free jazz. Throughout his career, he released over fifty albums as a bandleader. Amongst his many collaborators were key figures in free jazz, including Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor, as well as experimental musicians such as Keiji Haino and Charles Hayward. His 1968 Machine Gun became "one of the landmark albums of 20th-century free jazz".
Peter Kowald was a German free jazz and free improvising double bassist and tubist.
For Adolphe Sax is the debut album by free jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. It was initially released on Brötzmann's Brö label in 1967, and was reissued on LP by FMP in 1972. In 2002, it was reissued, with an additional track, on CD by the Atavistic label, and in 2014, the original three tracks were reissued on CD by Cien Fuegos Records.
Barry John Guy is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in the UK and Europe. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music under Buxton Orr, and later taught there.
Joëlle Léandre is a French double bassist, vocalist, and composer active in new music and free improvisation.
Machine Gun is the second album by German avant-garde jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, originally released on his BRÖ label in 1968.
Günter "Baby" Sommer is a German jazz drummer.
Harold Simon Miller was a South African jazz double bassist, who lived for most of his adulthood in England.
Alms/Tiergarten (Spree) is a live album by Cecil Taylor with the Cecil Taylor European Orchestra recorded in Berlin on July 2, 1988, as part of month-long series of concerts by Taylor and released on the FMP label.
Was Da Ist is a solo album by German free jazz bassist Peter Kowald which was recorded in Germany in 1994 for the FMP label.
If You Want the Kernels You Have to Break the Shells is an album by a free jazz trio consisting of German bassist Peter Kowald, American trumpeter Wadada Leo Smith, and German drummer Günter Sommer, which was recorded live in 1981 and released on the German FMP label. The two tracks from the side A of the album were combined on the CD reissue with Touch the Earth, another album by the same trio.
Ulrichsberg is a live album by pianist Irène Schweizer and drummer Pierre Favre. It was recorded in May 2003 at Ulrichsberger Kaleidophon in Austria, and was released by Intakt Records in 2004.
Alarm is a live album by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. It was recorded on November 12, 1981, at NDR Studio 10 in Hamburg, Germany, during the 164th NDR-Jazzworkshop, and was released in 1983 by FMP/Free Music Production. On the album, Brötzmann is joined by saxophonists Willem Breuker and Frank Wright, trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, trombonists Hannes Bauer and Alan Tomlinson, pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, bassist Harry Miller, and drummer Louis Moholo. In 2006, the album was reissued on CD by Atavistic Records as part of their Unheard Music Series.
Live at Kassiopeia is a live album by saxophonist Julius Hemphill and bassist Peter Kowald. It was recorded in Wuppertal, Germany, on January 8, 1987, and was released by NoBusiness Records as a double album in both LP and CD format in 2011, 24 years later. Disc 1 features three Hemphill solos followed by a Kowald solo, while disc 2 contains three duos.
Listen: Double Bass Solos 1989 & 1999 is a live solo album by double bassist Paul Rogers. Three tracks were recorded on May 1, 1999, in Le Mans, France, while the remaining track was recorded on October 8, 1989, in London. The album was released in 2002 by Emanem Records.
Deals, Ideas & Ideals is an album by drummer Rashied Ali, bassist Peter Kowald, and saxophonist and bass clarinetist Assif Tsahar. It was recorded on May 23 and 24, 2000, at Survival Studio in New York City, and was released in 2001 by Hopscotch Records.
Berlin Djungle is a live album by the Brötzmann Clarinet Project, led by Peter Brötzmann, and featuring an eleven-piece band that was assembled for a concert at JazzFest Berlin. Documenting a performance of a single 47-minute work, it was recorded on November 4, 1984, at the Delphi Theater in Berlin, and was released on vinyl in 1987 by FMP/Free Music Production. In 2004, it was reissued on CD by Atavistic Records as part of their Unheard Music Series. On the album, Brötzmann is joined by clarinetists Tony Coe, J.D. Parran, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, Louis Sclavis, and John Zorn, trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, trombonists Alan Tomlinson and Johannes Bauer, double bassist William Parker, and drummer Tony Oxley.
Schwarzwaldfahrt is an album by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and percussionist Han Bennink. It was recorded during May 9–11, 1977, in the open air of the Black Forest in Baden-Wuerttemberg, Germany, using a Stellavox tape recorder, and was initially released on vinyl later that year by the FMP label. In 2005, Atavistic Records reissued the album on CD as part of their Unheard Music Series, with previously unreleased tracks. The album was reissued on vinyl in 2012 by the Cien Fuegos imprint of Trost Records, and, in 2022, Trost reissued it again in limited quantities, accompanied by a 120-page book containing photos and an essay by novelist David Keenan.
European Echoes is an album by trumpeter Manfred Schoof on which he is joined by members of the Manfred Schoof Orchestra, a large ensemble of free jazz musicians. Consisting of a single half-hour track, it was recorded during June 1969 in Bremen, Germany, and was issued on vinyl later that year by FMP as the label's inaugural release. It appeared in three editions, each of which had its own cover design. In 2002, the album was reissued on CD by Atavistic Records as part of their Unheard Music Series, and in 2013, it was reissued on vinyl by Cien Fuegos, an imprint of Trost Records.
Lost & Found is a live solo album by saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. It was recorded on July 14, 2006, at Kampenjazz in Nickelsdorfer Konfrontationen in Nickelsdorf, Austria, and was released in 2009 by the FMP label.