Michael Jaeger keeps looking in the quartet KEROUAC with the pianist Vincent Membrez, the bassist Luca Sisera and the drummer Norbert Pfammatter since 2005 persistently and with more and more success for the labile balance between selffulfillment and control. Between freedom and structure. Between individualism and the collective. Today KEROUAC is on such an advanced level of the collective consciousness, that the four can launch each other almost telepathically into creative spaces. More than that: the collective understanding generates such a pull that even the guests Greg Osby and Philipp Schaufelberger are integrated almost on the spot, almost as if they were members of the band for years. They make most inspired improvised or composed music that does not aim to anything but itself, let alone any ideology whatsoever. Their music is even allowed to swing every now and again, it often develops a bewitching melodiousness yet goes audaciously to the borders of the atonal or noise making. In other words: It roots in the centre of “jazz” and at the same time far outside any cliché, thus really happening in the very moment. So this is what Whitney Balliett, the doyen ofjazz criticism, used to call this music: “the sound of surprise”.

Graphic design: Jonas Schoder
Liner notes: Peter Rüedi
Photos: Franca Candrian and Dean Jaggi, Luxwerk Zürich


All compositions by Michael Jaeger. Recorded June 14, 15, 16, 2009 by Schweizer Radio DRS, Radiostudio Zürich. Recorded, mixed and mastered by Daniel Dettwiler, Idee und Klang Studio, Basel. Produced by Michael Jaeger and Intakt Records, Patrik Landolt. Published and copyright byIntakt Records