COMPOSERS: Albert Mangelsdorff
LABELS: MPS
WORKS: Three Originals
PERFORMER: Albert Mangelsdorff (tbn); with various personnel including Heinz Saeür (ten); Wolfgang Dauner (p); Eddie Gomez, Günter Lenz, Léon Francioli (b); Elvin Jones, Ralf Hübner, Pierre Favre (d)
CATALOGUE NO: 529090-2 (distr. Polygram)
A compilation of three rare albums, Never Let It End, A Jazz Tune I Hope and Triple Entente by one of Europe’s greatest jazz musicians, Albert Mangelsdorff. Re-mastered using the 21-bit re-mastering process, the compilation places the trombonist in a variety of instrumental combinations. Perhaps the most rewarding is the 1970 Never Let It End with Saeür, a series of largely modal or pedal point originals that combine Mangelsdorff’s awkward lyricism with the tenor player’s occasionally impassioned ‘New Thing’ angst.
As the Seventies progressed, Mangelsdorff pioneered his now famous ‘multi-polyphonic’ technique which is featured on numbers such as ‘Wartg’schwind’, from A Jazz Tune I Hope (1978), where he plays with an exciting group that included Eddie Gomez and Elvin Jones. The final collection, Triple Entente, a trio album with Ralf Hübner and Wolfgang Dauner from 1982, is perhaps his most impassioned statement; no one in jazz played the trombone quite like Mangelsdorff, whose influence has stretched across the Atlantic to inspire younger players such as Ray Anderson. Stuart Nicholson