Unerhört 2007 - a little series of seeds over on dime

I attended and taped two nights of last year's Unerhört Festival here in Zurich. As usual, it was quite good. The first night I taped took place at the Rote Fabrik, the second at Moods, a local jazz club (THE local jazz club, I guess).

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Unerhört 2007 - Zürich (Switzerland), Rote Fabrik - November 24, 2007


Yves Reichmuth "Fractal"

Lucien Dubuis - bass clarinet
Yves Reichmuth - guitar, composer
Jonas Tauber - bass
Lionel Friedli - drums

1. Stage Intro (1:26)
2. Angles (18:33)
3. Windows (18:55)
4. unidentified (15:16)
5. La connaissance de l'invisible chemain (1:53) [encore]

TT: 56:04

Sound: A-/B+
Source: audience recording, front/centre
Lineage: crappy Sony mic > minidisc > analogue to HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded, transferred & shared by ubu

Notes:
I had to delete a few short gaps, hiccups remain - more gaps may be still in there.
This ended up more or less mono although it was recorded in stereo modus.

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Lucas Niggli "Zoom"

Nils Wogram - trombone
Philip Schaufelberger - guitar
Lucas Niggli - drums

1. (10:08)
2. (9:02)
3. (11:33)
4. (25:15) [possibly this track consists of several tunes performed in sequence]

TT: 55:59

Sound: A- (very modest stereo #1-3 / mono #4)
Source: audience recording, front/centre
Lineage: crappy Sony mic > minidisc > analogue to HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded, transferred & shared by ubu

Notes:
This ended up more or less mono although it was recorded in stereo modus.
At the end of #3 the left channel dropped out (I had to re-adjust the microphone), so I duplicated the right channel, making #4 an actual mono recording

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Trio 3 (Lake-Workman-Cyrille) feat. Irene Schweizer

Oliver Lake - alto sax
Irene Schweizer - piano
Reggie Workman - bass
Andrew Cyrille - drums

1. (9:16) [quartet]
2. (7:28) [quartet]
3. (5:26) [piano/bass]
4. (6:28) [quartet]
5. (7:46) [quartet]
6. (4:55) [piano/drums]
7. (6:54) [trio]
8. (5:01) [piano/alto sax]
9. (6:54) [trio]
10. (5:52) [quartet - encore]

TT: 66:05

Sound: A- (mono)
Source: audience recording, front/centre
Lineage: crappy Sony mic > minidisc > analogue to HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded, transferred & shared by ubu

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The highlight of that night of course was the pairing of Irene Schweizer with the fine trio of Lake/Workman/Cyrille. It took them a while to find common ground, but after the first of three marvellous duos, they were ready to play, continuing a marvellous set!

The second night again featured Workman and Lake:

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Unerhört 2007 - Zürich (Switzerland), Moods - November 25, 2007


Oliver Lake / Christian Weber / Dieter Ulrich

Oliver Lake - alto sax
Christian Weber - bass
Dieter Ulrich - drums

1. (7:43)
2. (6:46)
3. Valley Sketch (6:34)
4. (8:30)
5. (10:56)
6. (7:53)
7. (4:26)

TT: 52:49

Sound: A-
Source: audience recording / left from stage (turned out more or less mono)
Lineage: crappy Sony mic > minidisc > analogue to HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded, transferred & shared by ubu


Note: there was a 1.5sec dropout @ 3:35 into #7 which I removed, a hiccup remains there.

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Reggie Workman Solo

Reggie Workman - bass

1. Sketch (30:42)

Sound: A- (mono)
Source: audience recording / left from stage (turned out more or less mono)
Lineage: crappy Sony mic > minidisc > analogue to HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded, transferred & shared by ubu

Notes:
This was recorded in stereo but the left channel wasn't ok (not just low level but also distortion), so I only used the right one (double up to create "stereo" files that can be encoded to FLAC and burned to CDR)
There were quite a few dropouts that I did remove, some hiccups remain, alas.

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Peter Brötzmann / Marino Pliakas / Michael Wertmüller
(link will be added later, once this is up on dime)

Peter Brötzmann - tenor & alto sax, clarinet
Marino Pliakas - electric bass
Michael Wertmüller - drums

1. Stage Intro (1:26)
2. unknown (12:34)
3. unknown (9:53)
4. unknown (23:56)
5. unknown (3:48)

TT: 51:41

Sound: A-/B+ (#1-2 in mono)
Source: audience recording / left from stage (turned out more or less mono)
Lineage: crappy Sony mic > minidisc > analogue to HD > Cool Edit Pro > FLAC (8,asb,verify)
Recorded, transferred & shared by ubu

Notes:
This was recorded in stereo but it turned out mono, more or less, as I sat far from center
For the first title (plus the stage intro), the left channel wasn't ok (not just low level but also distortion), so I only used the right one.

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The highlight of this second night, to me, was the opening show which saw Oliver Lake playing with lots of fire, backed by the loose drumming of Dieter Ulrich and the great, earthy and boomy bass of Christian Weber. To me, whom it took a while to get to like Lake a bit, this was easily the best playing I ever heard of him. I do own two Trio 3 albums (the one on Palmetto plus the recent Intakt, Lake's Ballad quartet album, and a few other things where he turns up as a sideman, further recommendations for strong discs of his would be welcome!
The Brötzmann set was physical... not sure what to make of it, but it definitely was an experience. The volumes were almost impossible to take, some glasses broke, the whole place was vibrating from Wertmüller's bass drum and Pliakas' extremely fast bass lines. Yet the music was static and not going anywhere, just sort of happy to stay within itself. And imagine that: on tenor, Brötz had trouble cutting through the others' playing... on alto though, his playing got so piercing as to almost hurt.