Muthspiel | Johnson | Blade - Real Book Stories

Publisher: Quinton, Edition Phoenix, Analogue Audio Association (AAA)

Playing time: 44 min

Specifications: half track ¼", stereo, RTM SM468, CCIR, 510 nWb/m, 38 cm/s

Reel(s):               2 standard metal reels, with stickers

Packaging:        2 standard cardboard boxes, with stickers

Inserts:               1 booklet with 8 pages

Homepage: https://www.aaanalog.de/shop

Translation of the German review:

Guitar, drums, bass. These three instruments alone make the jazz standards arranged here shine. Among others, music by Miles Davis, Keith Jarrett, Gary Burton, John Coltrane, Kurt Weill and Thelonious Monk is played. With cover versions, I always ask myself whether it wouldn't be better to hear the original. Here it is indeed different: the three musicians make the ten titles their own affair. As a jazz listener, I recognize the pieces, but find my way well into the interpretations, because the accomplished instrumentalists make brilliant music and skillfully play out jazz technical dodges. They take the standards as a platform, but build their own world on top of them. I must note, however, that I have to be in a certain mood to listen to this music. It is very quietly interpreted. Then, in some listening sessions, it moves too slowly for me within the tracks. Nevertheless: the pieces have verve, brilliance, elegance, depth and energy. To hear from the tape in analog-typical cohesiveness and with every detail. The recording is very expressive, even though the drums were mixed in "excess width", as can be read in the accompanying booklet: "In addition to careful miking - we recorded the double bass, for example, with three (!) different microphones - it was also important to find the right amplifier sound for Wolfgang Muthspiel's guitar. We finally decided on a VOX AC30, which, to our ears, had just the right which, to our ears, had just the right mix of soft, "jazzy" sound and yet enough punch and attack. (...) We paid particular attention to giving enough space to the complex and detailed and detailed playing of the musicians. For this reason, we decided to reproduce Brian Blade's drums in "extra width", that is, over the entire stereo panorama, and "embedded" the guitar and bass, both minimally offset from the center, in the broadly mixed drums."

1. Lament: "J. J. Johnson's ballad was first introduced to me by my brother Christian, who plays trombone and loves J. J.. Dedicated to my father."

2. All The Things You Are: "One of the first jazz tunes I learned. When Keith Jarrett's recording came out, I was finally convinced that I wanted to play jazz."

3. Someday My Prince Will Come: "This song is forever associated with Miles, my favorite jazz musician."

4. I Hear A Rhapsody: "I played this tune many times in Gary Burton's band and I can still hear him turning it on its head. On this recording, we never really play the melody."

5. Blue In Green: “All I'm doing here is playing the melody over and over again."

6. Giant Steps: "The more complex the changes are, the harder it is to really improvise and not play patterns. I've been practicing this tune for a long time and now I'm officially stopping practicing it."

7. Peace: "Is one of my favorite pieces and one of the few standards I sometimes play in concerts."

8. Liebeslied: "Was introduced to me by Herb Pomeroy, a fantastic arranger and teacher in Boston. I played a lot with guitarist Mick Goodrick, who taught me a world of things that seem to have nothing to do with the guitar."

9. Ask Me Now: "I first played this song in Paul Motian's Electric Bebop Band. Like many of Monk's tunes, it's simultaneously tricky yet easy to play."

10. Solar: "Is one of those short forms that totally depends on what you make of it. It is simply the key to improvisation."

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Wolfgang Muthspiel about the music (taken from the liner notes of the CD “Real Book Stories”):

On the cover of this album you see a picture of New York taken from Hoboken, New Jersey, where we recorded these tracks. For me, it represents the beauty of a familiar place, looked from a different perspective. I come from a small town in Austria called Judenburg. When my family moved to the next biggest town, Graz, it felt like the center of the world. Yet to the Viennese, Graz is considered to be provincial. To play in Vienna for the first time seemed the ultimate proof of being successful, until I moved to Boston to study. From Boston, New York seemed like a planet for its own, unattainable and scary. When I finally moved to New York City, I settled in the “village”, for many the center of jazz. So, over the years I have moved from the outside to the center, finding among other things, that the center looks quite different once you are in it. It loses all the qualities that are commonly attached to it and assumed different ones. While New York City used to stand for things like speed, pulse, Metropolis, it now stands for friends, soccer in the park, our appartment, and the Early Bird Special at the Japanese Resteraunt. In a way, that’s how I approach the music on this album. I’m looking at Standards from an outsider’s perspective. I grew up with Mozart and not with Ellington and I was already playing music a long time before I discovered Jazz for myself. I like to be a foreigner, speak another language than my mother tongue. I like accents. This is my first album of Jazz Standards. I’ve always played them, but rarely in my concerts or on my albums. This recording feels to me like a conversation about Standards. A conversation with two of my favorite musicians about music I love.  

Wolfgang Muthspiel: Guitar 

Born in Judenburg (Styria) in Austria in 1965. Spent most of his time in New York until 2002, when he moved back to Vienna. Despite his exceptional guitar technique, it is his musical qualities that are foremost acknowledged in the world. Among his inspiration, he mentions Olivier Messiaen, Bach and Glenn Gould as well as Miles Davis, Prince or Bill Evans.

Marc Johnson: Double Bass 

Over the past two decades, Marc Johnson has quite simply made a name for himself in the jazz scene as an innovator. A popular band leader, multi-faceted composer and a bass player in the virtuoso class, his name can be found on over 100 albums that he has recorded together with celebrities such as Stan Getz, Michael Brecker, Peter Erskine, Paul Motian, Jack De-Johnette and Gary Burton. Marc Johnson's musical background spans a wide range from Beethoven to Hendrix.

Brian Blade: Drums

Having spent his childhood in the American ‘Southern Badlands’, Brian Blade grew up with the music of rock’n’roll, blues and gospel. Combined with his background in jazz, Brian Blade is just as comfortable with straight ahead R&B as he is with pop or jazz. Actually he plays in the band of Wayne Shorter.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)