An ideal Mt. Rushmore of jazz should certainly show “A love supreme” as one of the figureheads carved in the rock: not even a primate (no disregard towards our ancestors…) would raise an eyebrow about and here is the last spot on earth to explain why. Along the decades, some mavericks took up the gauntlet, deciding to climb the Nanga Parbat on heels, or, in other words, to cover such a monster milestone: Alice Coltrane on World Galaxy (1971) and Live at Jazz Jamboree (1987), surely the most meaningful for obvious reasons, then, as come to mind, Ganavya, Wynton Marsalis, Turtle Island Quartet, Santana/McLaughlin, Toshiyuki Miyama. Different backgrounds, different feelings, different results. The pretty recent (2021) A Love Supreme. Live in Seattle is the last and ultimate evidence of what a hellish task it is to handle with that record. Someone else drew on the map a wholly peculiar route, subverting the didascalic notion of the tribute or songbook, but rather taking structural and dynamic cues from the original record, utilizing free improv in their own way. We’re talking of Das B and its second album, recorded and mixed at Brief Sand Studios, Berlin, in 2022, jointly released by the Swedish Thanatosis Records and Corbett vs. Dempsey.
The lineup is deployed as follows:
Magda Mayas, piano. Living in Berlin, she developed a vocabulary utilizing both the inside as well as the exterior parts of the piano. Using preparations and objects, she explores textural, linear and fast moving sound collage. She has recently been performing on a clavinet/pianet, an electric piano from the 60s with strings and metal chimes, where she engages with noise and more visceral sound material, equally extending the instrumental sound palette using extended techniques and devices. She has collaborated with the likes of John Butcher, Andy Moor, Zeena Perkins, Joelle Leandre, Paul Lovens, Ikue Mori, Phill Niblock, Peter Evans, Andrea Neumann, Burkhard Stangl, Christine Abdelnour and Axel Doerner.
Mazen Kerbaj, trumpet. Born in Beirut in 1975, Berlin based now, is a musician, comics author and visual artist, widely considered as one of the initiators and key players of the Lebanese free improv and experimental music scene. He played his trumpet with Alan Bishop, Nate Wooley, Joe McPhee, Peter Evans, Pauline Oliveros, The Necks, Michael Zerang, The Ex, among others, “pushing the boundaries of the instrument and continues to develop a personal sound and an innovative language, following in the footsteps of pioneers like Bill Dixon, Axel Doerner and Franz Hautzinger”, as per his bio notes.
Mike Majkowski, bass. Born in Australia, based in Berlin, active across a wide range of contemporary, improv and experimental music since the early 2000s, he developed a highly innovative playing style, extending and refining technical possibilities for the double bass. His musical work ranges from purely acoustic to electro-acoustic to electronic and explores relationships between stillness and pulse, spectral qualities of resonance, duration and perception of listening. He lent his fat strings to Oren Ambarchi, Marshall Allen, Tim Barnes, Han Bennink, Peter Brötzmann, Mats Gustafsson, Silke Eberhard, Satoko Fuji, Evan Parker, Sven-Ake Johansson, Alexander von Schlippenbach.
Tony Buck, drums. From The Necks’ fame, he certainly doesn’t need to be introduced.
As a rule, it’s always fruitful to get the primary source, and that's what they say about this project: “We are not attempting to recreate the album. Rather, we took the original album’s track timing and instrumental structure, as well as some other technical aspects, like balancing and panning, the occurrence of overdubs and timbral relationships within the original, to create our tribute. This was our process and our idea was to link our music-free improv-to its roots in jazz and free jazz”. The final outcome is amazing and puzzling. If, on one hand, we have the philological approach explained above, on the other, we see the raw material, grinded and pulverized until the molecular state, reassembled in urban, daunting, gloomy minimal textures, reminding us the likes of Burial or Kode 9 dealing with a free and improv recipe. The music is surely bringing traces of “A love supreme” but you’d need a DNA profile to track them and this makes “Love” a challenge that needs and deserves to be accepted: Trane would approve it, sure thing.
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