Unser Baby wird 80: Sommerfest 2023

With increased lifespans and improvements in health, 80 is the new 40 for some people. That was no more evident than in Dresden in late September when German percussionist Günter “Baby” Sommer celebrated his 80th birthday with three days of concerts at the city’s Semper Zwei concert hall and basement Jazzclub Tonne. Playing with the vigor and enthusiasm of a drummer half his age or less, Sommer didn’t overload the celebrations with showy percussion displays. Instead, and as he has in the past during a career that stretches back to the 1960s, he ceded most of the sets to group collaborations. Cementing his acceptance of constant change, these collaborations were not only with veteran contemporaries, but also featured newer playing partners.

One of the most spectacular displays of this climaxed opening night at Semper Zwei, the modern second stage of the city’s famous Neo-Classical opera house, when Sommer led his 12-piece Brother & Sisterhood of Breath. Musicians involved were from Germany, Austria, Romania and Scotland, and included trumpeters Niklaus Neuser and Martin Klingeberg; trombonists Gerhard Gschlößle and Micha Winkler, and alto saxophonists Silke Eberhard, Anna Kaluza and Raymond MacDonald. Matthias Schubert played tenor saxophone, Gebhard Ullmann tenor saxophone and bass clarinet with pianist Uli Gumpert; bassist Robert Lucaciu, and Sommer.

Working off a double bass pulse that vibrated with multiple string pops and flat-fingered piano pumps, the group moved through themes that touched on South African kwela, Mingus-like gospel-blues shouts, Latin-affiliated asides and horn-heavy swinging vamps. Themes were propelled by Sommer’s brisk moves from even pacing, ecstatic tone clipping and hammered plops as he switched among brushes, mallets and sticks. As tunes evolved, he also added frame drum pumps, metal bowl pings and shook a net filled with bells and chimes. Until the final number, during which each band member slapped, ratcheted or blew into Sommer-distributed percussion implements, solos were liberally passed around on the players’ usual instruments.

Adding to the excitement of the moments, jousts among the reed and brass players were featured, with Gschlößl’s cup- muted slurs contrasted with Winkler’s balanced slides. Neuser’s clear brassiness complemented Klingeberg’s half-valve work and scat singing, while Schubert and Ullmann came across as a Teutonic Johnny Griffin and Eddie Lockjaw Davis with Bluesy tenor saxophone honks. Ulmann’s bass clarinet tongue slaps plus the alto saxophonists’ dissonant whines and multiphonic yelps underlined the unconventional unfolding of some tunes. Additionally MacDonald, who also leads the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra, did double duty on one extended piece, moving in front of the players’ horizontal line-up and used conduction hand signals and even a leap into the air to emphasize that exposition’s turns and accents. This left Sommer free to time-keep. His march-like passages subtly joined Gumpert’s emphasized Blues chording for the final climax.

A similar group exhibition took place on the elevated stage of the spacious and subterranean Jazzclub Tonne during the festival’s concluding set, when Sommer was joined by what was billed as an All Star band with Germans Till Brönner (trumpet), Nils Wogram (trombone), Daniel Erdmann (tenor saxophone) and Romanian-German bassist Lucaciu. Acclaimed as a best-selling trumpeter/vocalist, Brönner was the biggest surprise, ostensibly putting aside his commercial direction to fire off bright tremolo blasts or subtle flutters in solos, or to fit in with the other horn players during unison expositions.

Adapting to pseudo-Dixieland group improvising, the three extended their harmonies so that the saxophonist’s sliding doits and hard-toned honks plus the trombonist’s mellow, hand-muted sighs or bright pecks joined trumpet portamento for layered expositions. Sometimes there were interludes of unaccompanied horn work. However, these brief forays were brought back into linear affiliations with loping cadences from the drummer’s subtle brush work and the bassist’s positioned triple stopping. Mellow promenades were more prominent than staccato jabs, with the sometimes exploratory sonic forays expressed by the Brother & Sisterhood of Breath put aside for a more relaxed interface. Still the high level of skill exhibited by all concerned made this showcase anything but a conventional performance.

Another group that moved past conventional tropes as a FreeBop combo was Günter Baby Sommer & die Brüder Lucaciu featured the previous night at the Semper Zwei. With Robert Lucaciu on bass again, he and Sommer were joined by his siblings, alto saxophonist Antonio Lucaciu and pianist Simon Lucaciu. Having toured and recorded in this formation, the brothers were ready to pump out high-octave sounds as soon as the drummer signalled the beginning by waving his red sweat towel and then slapping the s...

While Fall might not seem the right time to put on a three-day "Sommerfest" (Sep. 22-24), the explanation was simple: the event was in honor of celebrated German drummer Günter "Baby" Sommer's 80th birthday year. He curated the program in his beautiful home city of Dresden, Germany at the prestigious Semperoper Dresden opera house's Semper Zwei modern wing on the first two evenings, while the intimate Jazz Club Tonne basement space (just around the corner from the historic Frauenkirche) hosted the third.

A fixture in East Germany's more adventurous outfits, Sommer subsequently formed fertile connections in the West, as evidenced by recordings with Wadada Leo Smith and Cecil Taylor. But in spite of his reputation in the European free scene, Sommer loves to swing. In that respect at least, his kinship with Dutchman Han Bennink is evident. His nickname stems from his affection for Louis Armstrong's drummer Warren "Baby" Dodds. Indeed, his consequent command of the rudiments with their echoes of Prussian march music-have come to form the basis of his expression in even the most unfettered settings. Allied to that is an impish sense of timing and a finely honed ear for precise explosions of tuned pitches that add both drama and fun to any show.

Each of his three appearances constituted a highlight. First was an outing for his Brother & Sisterhood of Breath, a dozen-strong company that channeled the spirit of Chris McGregor's famous big band of almost the same name. Indeed, two of McGregor's charts featured alongside others by Sommer, pianist Ulrich Gumpert and saxophonist Raymond MacDonald. Sommer energized the band with a fierce drive that Art Blakey would have coveted. Punchy riffs intersected, counterlines uncoiled and glorious horn polyphony intermittently erupted, buoyed by Gumpert's off-kilter bluesy comping and bassist Robert Lucaciu's surefooted propulsion. Sommer's "Karawane", which incorporated trumpeter Martin Klingeberg declaiming Dada poet Hugo Ball's 1916 nonsense verse over a cantering funk, opened up for a sequence of impromptu duos and trios, with Matthias Schubert's choked tenor cries particularly notable. The stirring intensity of McGregor's "Do It" segued into the more exotic terrain of his "Night Poem", where trombonist Gerhard Gschlössl pontificated and burbled affectingly over flutes and percussion. Other outstanding moments included the triumphant processional of Gumpert's "Japan Suite", which framed an a capella outburst from Gebhard Ullmann's tenor, full of burnished sinuosity, bleating false fingering and frayed multiphonics, while Silke Eberhard's pneumatic phrasing and strangulated alto shrieks emerged from a string of joyful blasts on the last number before a standing ovation ensued.

Bassist Robert Lucaciu also featured alongside Sommer with his brothers, Antonio Lucaciu (alto) and Simon Lucaciu (piano), drawing their repertoire from the award-winning Karawane, issued like so much of the drummer's output on the enterprising Intakt imprint. Although two generations younger, the siblings have developed a remarkable rapport with the drummer. From the annunciatory Albert Ayler-tinged theme of "Impressions of Little Bird", Sommer was ultra-attentive and ever-ready to shift dynamics or complement the others.

For the festival's finale, Sommer convened an "All Star Band" quintet. In a testament to his talent, Lucaciu returned on bass, joined by Till Brönner (trumpet), Nils Wogram (trombone) and Daniel Erdmann (tenor). They leapt into Manfred Schoof's sprightly "Like Don", the three horns melding wonderfully in tight unisons, interspersed with bebop drum breaks. Thereafter, their magnificent interweavings and pithy interjections, suggesting a Mingus frontline, framed some tasty soloing. With his incisive note placement and elegant tone, Brönner (Germany's best-selling jazz musician) showed he was also more than capable of the sort of spontaneous invention familiar to Wogram and Erdmann. One of the peaks was a duet between Lucaciu and Sommer, by turns playful, syncopated and responsive.

Although Sommer played in only the final set each evening, his fingerprints were all over the preceding sets from a variety of collaborators chosen to showcase the breadth of his interests. Some he placed in unfamiliar combinations. Gunda Gottschalk (violin) and Xu Fengxia (guzheng: a sort of zither, and sanxian: a three-stringed lute) joined Italian Fabrizio Puglisi (piano) to morph across a series of on-the-fly structures. More rhythmic than the instrumentation might suggest, they touched on martial grooves, lilting ditties and madcap swirls, all laced with humor and impetuous virtuosity. None of the three participants in Clarinet Summit had played together before, and only Italian veteran Gianluigi Trovesi had played with Sommer. Dutch bass clarinetist Joris Roelofs held center stage, flanked by Trovesi (alto clarinet) and Julius Gawlik (Bb clarinet). The encounter turned sinuous, conversational, ex...