Total Music Association: Walpurgisnacht

Rating: ★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Andreas Boje (tb)
Hans-Jörg Hussong (bs, ss)
Wilfried Eichhorn (bcl, bs, ts, as)
Rudi Theilmann (d)
Erich Schröder (vla)
Willi Schneider (d)
Matthias Boje (b)
Helmut Zimmer (p)

Label:

NoBusiness NBCD145

March/2022

Media Format:

CD

RecordDate:

Rec. 17 July 1971 and 3 July 1988

Total Music Association was an underground West German free-jazz collective active around the late 1960s/early 70s, with an ever-changing line-up. In fact, the septet that recorded and self-released their only album, Walpurgisnacht, was a one-shot deal, never to be reconvened.

There’s an amusing story in the liner notes about bassist Peter Kowald turning up expecting to be paid then promptly packing up and leaving again once he discovered the jazz was to be free in both senses of the word.

Certainly, it’s not hard to detect the influence of Kowald’s sometime employer, the Globe Unity Orchestra in the two side-long suites with their dramatic piano plunges, massed horns and Brötzmann-esque skronk. At the same time, simple composed motifs acting as bridges between solo, duo, trio and group improvisations are just enough structure to pull the music back from self-indulgent chaos.

A bonus 21-minute piece by saxophonist Hans-Jörg Hussong’s 1980s trio, extra3, is even more episodic, moving through bursts of breakneck heavy swing, modal jazz rock and seething free form abstraction.

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