Nothing is more beautiful in music than this risk, this experiment that wants to break out and to tame; the hot and the cool head,» writes the Saxophone player and composer Omri Ziegele as a motto about the music of the nine-member jazz band «Billiger Bauer». Initiated by the Zurich Saxophone player and composer Omri Ziegele, for many years, some of the best Swiss improvisers have been meeting in varying groupings in the Zurich Musicians Center «WIM»: a who is who of the younger jazz generation in Switzerland. Thanks to many years of playing together, the musicians have developed an unmistakable body of sound. Billiger Bauer played more than one hundred concerts before the musicians went into the studio and recorded the composition from Omri Ziegele, «The Silence Behind Each Cry.» The four-part suite Ð with songs about the poems of the American writer Robert Creely Ð, which allow the great instrumentalist space to improvise, is characterized by the «will to a common architechture, to a great stringent form.» Ð «What was love,» asks Robert Creeley in his poem, which Omri Ziegele, in his inimitable way, varies, and invokes, plumbing the question in all its ramifications, until it turns out to be an insoluble riddle whose solution, with every step closer, only slips further into the distance: «and how did one get there?»

Cover Art: Gérard Tolk
Liner Notes: Ruth Schweikert, Omri Ziegle
Photo: Manfred Ziegele

Music and Lyrics by Omri Ziegele (SUISA). Except Part IV «Echoes Of R.C.» Lyrics by Robert Creeley. Recorded May 31, June 1, 2, 2001 by Martin Pearson at Radio Studio DRS. Produced by Omri Ziegele and Intakt Records. Published and copyright by Intakt Records. Executive production: Patrik Landolt