ALMUT KÜHNE/GEBHARD ULLMANN/ACHIM KAUFMANN - Marbrakeys
Leo Records CD LR 726
Almut Kühne, voice; Gebhard Ullmann, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Achim Kaufmann, piano
Recorded live at RBB Studios, Berlin July 2nd 2013
You may like to read my review of Geode by the Gebhard Ullmann/Achim Kaufmann duo, as this covers their approach to this kind of musical performance and I shouldn’t repeat it here.
Almut Kühne has recorded previously with Ullmann (Silver White Archives: Unit Records 2014) and this just six years after earning her degree in Jazz Studies at the Berlin Music Conservatory. At that time she was researching routes into combining improv and jazz fundamentalism with her own European musical pedigree. She is an extraordinary artist who also works visually with elements as diverse as dance and theatre, painting and video, as well of course as other musicians in various genres. She performed, in 2012, in a German adaptation of “La Vie Parisienne” (Jacques Offenbach) as a granny, a light girl and a tattoo artist!
The main facet of this album and which is especially clear from Kühne’s performance is that music does not need to be constructed around tunes. It never has really. It doesn’t need lyrics either, nor stanzas. Kühne here delivers sounds, noises. She creates music, yet shows that singing does not depend on melody. Cleverly, she also shows it is possible to work and perform simultaneously in differing genres, so that free jazz may not necessarily be divorced from any other musical form, regardless of its age.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Leo Records CD LR 726
Almut Kühne, voice; Gebhard Ullmann, tenor saxophone, bass clarinet; Achim Kaufmann, piano
Recorded live at RBB Studios, Berlin July 2nd 2013
You may like to read my review of Geode by the Gebhard Ullmann/Achim Kaufmann duo, as this covers their approach to this kind of musical performance and I shouldn’t repeat it here.
Almut Kühne has recorded previously with Ullmann (Silver White Archives: Unit Records 2014) and this just six years after earning her degree in Jazz Studies at the Berlin Music Conservatory. At that time she was researching routes into combining improv and jazz fundamentalism with her own European musical pedigree. She is an extraordinary artist who also works visually with elements as diverse as dance and theatre, painting and video, as well of course as other musicians in various genres. She performed, in 2012, in a German adaptation of “La Vie Parisienne” (Jacques Offenbach) as a granny, a light girl and a tattoo artist!
The main facet of this album and which is especially clear from Kühne’s performance is that music does not need to be constructed around tunes. It never has really. It doesn’t need lyrics either, nor stanzas. Kühne here delivers sounds, noises. She creates music, yet shows that singing does not depend on melody. Cleverly, she also shows it is possible to work and perform simultaneously in differing genres, so that free jazz may not necessarily be divorced from any other musical form, regardless of its age.
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
