CD jw 004 ULRICH GUMPERT WORKSHOP BAND:
SMELL A RAT
ULRICH GUMPERT piano
HEINZ BECKER trumpet & flugelhorn
CONRAD BAUER trombone
ERNST-LUDWIG PETROWSKY alto saxohone & clarinet
MANFRED HERING alto saxohone & clarinet
HELMUT FORSTHOFF tenor saxophone
KLAUS KOCH double bass
GÜNTER BABY‘ SOMMER drums
Recorded in June 1995
DEU
Die Ulrich Gumpert Workshop Band wurde 1972 aus der Taufe gehoben. Programmatisch bezog sich die Band auf das eigene musikalische Erbe und auf das eigene Umfeld. Im Laufe der Jahre hat sich der Horizont erweitert, sind immer neue Ideen eingeflossen, auch jazztraditionelle Mittel und Materialien reaktiviert bzw. neu beleuchtet worden. Vor diesem Background und im handverlesenen Kreis erstklassiger Spieler entwickelte sich die Band zu einem Live-Labor. Seit der zweiten Hälfte der siebziger Jahre blieb die Besetzung konstant, obwohl es immer wieder großer Anstrengung bedurfte, die Band zusammenzubringen. Gumpert weiß die Individualität seiner Musiker ins rechte Licht zu setzen und der Band dennoch das Gefühl und die Ausstrahlung eines Kollektivs zu geben. Wenn man weiß, wer man ist und wo man herkommt, kann man den eigenen Sinnen vertrauen und Musik spielen, die in sich bereits so eigen ist, dass sie sich nicht gewollt abzuheben braucht. Heute legt die Band noch immer oder schon wieder den Finger auf die Wunde, weiß sie Versäumtes und Verlorenes zu beklagen, aber auch Gewonnenes und Erhebendes mit hymnischen Klängen zu bezeugen. Bert Noglik

ENG
Sweeter smelling – er, listening – than the title would indicate, Smell a Rat is a newly unearthed East German FreeBop classic from 1995, featuring a septet of the former-German Democratic Republic (GDR)’s best jazz musicians. Central to the project and members of the GDR’s most accomplish advanced combo – the Zentralquartett – are the Workshop’s leader, pianist Ulrich Gumpert; drummer Günter ‘Baby’ Sommer who splits the writing chores here with Gumpert; plus reedist Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and trombonist Conrad Bauer. The band is filled out with top studio players of the day who worked with the Zentrals in other bands: smooth trumpeter and flugelhornist Heinz Becker, saxophonists Manfred Hering (alto) and Helmut Forsthoff (tenor) plus solid bassist Klaus Koch.
With Zentralquartett, Gumpert, who won the prestigious Albert Mangelsdorff German Jazz Prize in November 2005, often manages to combine traditional German folk music and agit-prop melodies with his personalized adaptation of Bop, Blues and Gospel. Those primary influences are missing here though, with the eight compositions fully immersed in Black American musical methods. In more than just the band’s title in fact, the pianist shows his debt to and refinement of similar concepts used after mid-century by bassist Charles Mingus.
Not that thereu’s any hint of imitation. Except for one unfortunate lapse, luckily left for the final track, Gumpert and his associates turn out a stellar small group session, parts of which could easily have fit in the 1960s-1970s Blue Note or Atlantic catalogue, yet with more advanced musical flashes than the purely imitative American, so-called Young Lions were offering at the time (1990s).
Most distinctive track is the 17-minute “The Pursuit”, which relates to even earlier rhythm inflections then Mingus-modernism. The link is to classic Count Basie-led bands’ ability to swing powerfully while steaming along at a relaxed andante pace. Thus, rather than any Mingus trombonist, Bauer plays as if he is long-time Basie-ite Al Grey, as his brassy slurs and plunger tones throb on top of carefully-arranged slithery horn parts and a walking bass line. When Petrowsky takes over the tune with double-tongued smears and honks, he’s reminiscent of a spiky Cannonball Adderley, with his blues tonality peaking through multiphonic intervallic leaps and harsh split tones. All the while, behind them, the pianist oscillates between sparse Monkish comping and Bobby Timmons-like finger-snapping licks.
These amplifications of Monk, Mingus and gospel-funk filleted with more modern harmonics inform many of the other tunes as well. Most prominently there’s the steady keyboard blues progression and avant-gutbucket runs from Bauer on Sommer’s “Blues for I.M.”; the Mingusian horn charts and quick tempo change from lope to agitato on Gumpert’s “Baryschna/The fugitive”; and the contrapuntal call-and-response note-trading with smeared and flutter tongued riffs and split tone intensity from the horns on the title track.
One noteworthy departure comes on the drummer’s “Marcia Funebre”, where the altered horn parts move forward in rondo format, undulating above a percussive undertow that includes impressionistic bell pealing from the composer. “Marcia Funebre” also showcases Becker’s burnished Tomasz Stanko-out-of-Kenny Wheeler flugelhorn work.
Although it must be admitted that at times a few of the tutti passages and horn harmonies sound a little closer to Henry Mancini’s blaring “Peter Gun” TV show score than Mingus’best work, the only completely unsatisfying track is Gumpert’s “Hymn”. With the pianist outputting mechanized faux-gospel licks à la Les McCann and containing a syrupy sax solo that sounds like David Sanborn at his most commercial, the composition seems to have wandered in from a pop-R&B date next door. But set up your system to skip over this track and instead listen to the superior work that precedes it. If the Workshop Band is so memorable on this outing from more than a decade ago, imagine — if it’s still together — how impressive it must sound today. Ken Waxman