George Gruntz

George Gruntz – St. Peter Power (1968/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 31:24 minutes | 584 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS

The church organ’s role in classical music runs from Buxtahude and Bach on through to such contemporary composers as Hindemith and Messian, but jazz musicians have tended to stay clear of this mighty instrument and its orchestral power. Not so Swiss jazz maestro George Grunz; on this 1968 MPS album, accompanied by two European jazz masters, bassist Eberhard Weber and drummer Daniel Humair, Gruntz utilizes the organ as “a vehicle to elevate some of the most beautiful ballad-like melodies to a world of sound completely new to jazz”.

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George Gruntz – Noon in Tunisia (1967/2016)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 37:56 minutes | 750 MB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS

Renowned Swizz pianist/composer George Gruntz became entranced by the music of the North African Maghreb on his 1964 visit to Tunisia. Over the next few years he revisited the area, taking in the melodies, rhythms, and improvisational styles of a Bedouin music rooted in 1000 years of nomadic culture. With the intent of integrating this music with jazz, Gruntz assembled the crème of the Bedouin players and a top-flight group of like-minded jazz musicians.

Sahle, the divine demon who gave voice and song to the people of the desert, serves as a brief vocal introduction to the meat of the album, Gruntz’s six-movement Maghreb Contata. In the first movement, Tikhbar, the musicians get to know each other in this cohering group improvisation. The Ghitta is both a rhythm and a name for the African oboe, played here by the instrument’s leading exponent, Moktar Slama, with soprano and nay (bamboo flute) joining in on this passionate percussive mix. The Alaji rhythm features a duo between French violin great Jean-Luc Ponty and bassist Eberhard Weber. On the meditative pastoral Djerbi Salah El Mahdi improvises on the nay with impressive piano backing. The pulsating M’rabaa rhythm features outstanding oboe and soprano solos. The Contata continues with Buanuara (the man who carries the flower) with its intense climax of cross-rhythms and mixture of solo and group play, and Fazani, a Bedouin theme transformed into jazz riff as percussion and wind instruments pound out their impression of the Maghreb. Nemeit, the “Song of Loneliness”, combines North African song form and modern jazz harmonies as a fitting end to this amalgam of music fired in the heat and passion of North Africa.

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George Gruntz – Monster Sticksland Meeting Two (Live) (1974/2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 53:15 minutes | 1,00 GB | Genre: Jazz
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © MPS

In 1974, some seven years after the first Basel ‘Sticksland’ meeting, a 36-man percussion extravaganza took place that once again featured a top-flight jazz ensemble together with the Basel drum and fife corps of Alfred Sacher and Georges Mathys. Now add a Scottish drum and fife corps with the former and reigning Scottish drumming champions Jimmy Catherwood and Joe Noble, kilts and all, as well as some 300 fifers hidden in the audience of a theater packed to overflowing. The results: a Carnival Happening!

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