First-generation pioneers of European free improvisation return to Chicago

Pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, saxophonist Evan Parker, and percussionist Paul Lytton are all members of the first generation of musicians from England and Europe to respond to the example of American free jazz with proposals of their own. Each man has attained singular mastery of his instrument, and between them they’ve stripped the jazz vernacular out of their musical language, added junkyard sounds, and mapped out the connections between jazz and 12-tone classical composition (to name just three of the creative strategies they’ve pursued). And they’ve done much of their best work in one another’s company. An identically named Schlippenbach Trio that includes the pianist, Parker, and German drummer Paul Lovens has carried on a semiannual touring and recording partnership since 1972, sustaining a dialogue between ultraconcentrated, collectively conceived statements and extended performances fueled by an unflagging anticipation of one another’s ideas it’s yielded some of the greatest free jazz to come from across the Atlantic. Parker and Lytton have been playing together for even longer, achieving music of extraordinary complexity in both acoustic and electroacoustic settings. This configuration has visited Chicago twice before, in 1998 and 2003; the double CD America 2003 (Psi), which was recorded during two other gigs on the latter tour, flows inexorably from one possibility to the next, including jagged juxtapositions of density and space and a bit of serialist boogie-woogie.

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German pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach has been in at the ground floor on so many seminal moments. He was there when Europeans began to throw off the shackles of the American jazz hegemony in the ‘60s, what critic Joachim-Ernst Berendt termed “Die Emanzipation”. In doing so he founded the Globe Unity Orchestra, one of the first free jazz big bands. At the same time he also pioneered a way to incorporate serial music into an improvised setting. But having helped propose a European answer to the questions jazz poses, he revealed his fondness for his roots by being the first to record Thelonious Monk’s entire canon. If any further reason were needed for his place as one of the most influential musicians of his generation, look no further than his helming one of longest running outfits in free jazz: the Schlippenbach Trio. So where did his love of jazz come from? Schlippenbach explains: “I was a jazz fan already in my very early years. I used to listen to the Voice of America Jazz Hour every night. When I heard Oscar Peterson the first time live, it attracted me totally to be a jazz piano player. In the beginning it was only the American style. Later I studied composition in Köln and was certainly influenced by European traditions as well.” Schlippenbach’s first outlets were under the leadership of kindred spirits trumpeter Manfred Schoof and multiinstrumentalist Gunter Hampel. He performed new music works by his teacher, composer Bernd Alois Zimmermann, which contained sections for improvisation by jazz players with Schoof. When the opportunity for a large-scale work emerged, he called upon his colleagues from these groups, as well as players such as Peter Brötzmann and Willem Breuker. How did the opportunity arise? “It was a commission by the radio [RIAS Berlin] for the Berlin Jazz Festival [Berliner Jazztage] 1966, to write and arrange something for a large ensemble of free jazz players. So I did and the name of the piece was ‘Globe Unity’. The performance at the Berlin Philharmonie in November 1966 was a kind of scandal and success. So the band went on and was called the Globe Unity Orchestra.” GUO went on to record 17 discs, the last being Globe Unity 50 Years (Intakt) recorded at the 2016 Berlin Jazz Festival. Initially the repertoire focused on Schlippenbach’s own ideas, but that changed over time. “I am a composer myself and interested in pieces of other musicians as well. From time to time we did projects focused on a selection of certain pieces, especially at that time, and we may do again. Nowadays we do more completely improvised performances.” From the outset Schlippenbach has held Monk in high esteem. How does he rate him? “The greatest composer in jazz. As a pianist he has an incomparable touch and extremely good timing. Each of his pieces has an own strong and specific character. Once you know them, you will never forget.” In the early days there were no fake books, so Schlippenbach had to copy from someone else, get help from Monk collaborator Steve Lacy or work things out for himself. He did some arrangements for the GUO, including the version of “Ruby My Dear” on Pearls (FMP, 1977) on which Anthony Braxton was the soloist. During concerts with bass clarinetist Rudi Mahall and trumpeter Axel Dörner in the ‘90s, they would include some Monk tunes. But then matters progressed. “The idea was to play all the 70 pieces in one night’s performance. It was developed in collaboration with the quartet Die Enttäuschung to achieve a kind of acoustic picture, like a kaleidoscope of Monk. It was worked by using collage techniques and improvisations as well. The complete performance is about 3 hours and 15 minutes in three parts with some intermissions in between.” The first performance in its entirety was at a Hamburg radio station in 1998, but they had worked on the program for over ten years before the recitals in Berlin in 2003 and 2004 that formed Monk’s Casino (Intakt). Their rendition of Monk’s oeuvre is far from straightforward. Some tunes are given elaborate and extended arrangements while others are quick and simple. But other episodes are downright wacky, such as a section with a large rubber ball, which provides the cues to start and stop a piece. It’s not only Monk. In 2014, Schlippenbach and life partner Japanese pianist Aki Takase recorded So Long Eric (Intakt), a similarly inspired program of works by reedplayer Eric Dolphy with a midrange ensemble that includes vibraphonist Karl Berger and drummer Han Bennink, both who shared stages with Dolphy and are GUO alumni. What’s Schlippenbach’s view of Dolphy? “Especially beautiful and surprising formal implications as well. In his importance he is the great follower of Charlie Parker, moving further on with an utopic imagination for melody in his improvisations.” This wasn’t the first collaboration with Takase. Over the years three piano duet albums have been issued, the most recent being the remarkable 1995 date Live From Cafe Amores (NoBus...