Recorded in January 1973
I suppose many of you will recall the long-gone "Magic Purple Sunshine," a blog dedicated to sharing music released on Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer's Musik Produktion Schwarzwald (MPS) [in English, Music Production Black Forest] label. Now that MPS has been acquired by Edel and made most of their catalog available again (if only as downloads), a blog like "Magic Purple Sunshine" no longer serves a valid purpose. But there was a time when it was valuable, providing access to music that was otherwise only available on cost-prohibitive LPs. This was especially true to an American like me. I had very little exposure to the music released on the label -- aside from a few big names (like Basie and Oscar Peterson) and a smattering of titles licensed to PAUSA. Some commentators have even argued that blogs "Magic Purple Sunshine" played a role in changing younger people's attitudes about jazz in the 1970s. A great deal of the music from the decade was unavailable, but people sharing it via the blogoshere facilitated exposure for the music to a new generation that wasn't there when it was happening the first time. (Of course, like most things about the internet, there's another side of the coin. Artists and others who deserved payment for their work weren't getting paid. I fully acknowledge that problem. But that's another topic for another day.)
The point of all this? I'm fairly certain that I never would have discovered Joachim Kühn's This Way Out if it weren't for the "Magic Purple Sunshine" blog. And I'm glad I found it, because I think the album is excellent. It's also music that Kühn is himself describes as distinctively "European Jazz" in the album's liner notes. The band is consciously attempting to bringing a new sensibility, a new set preoccupations to the table, and I think that's almost always a valuable enterprise.
The double-album consists of one trio LP and and one quartet LP, which adds Gerd Dudek on tenor & soprano sax as well as flute. As much as I enjoy Dudek's playing (and I do), I prefer the trio cuts. This configuration anticipates the superb and influential trio that Joachim Kühn and Daniel Humair would later form with French double bassist Jean-François Jenny-Clark.
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