Bloody Rolf Kühn

This is a reissue (first time on CD) of the seminal album by legendary German clarinetist/composer Rolf Kuhn (born 1929), recorded with a quintet, which also included his younger brother pianist/composer Joachim Kuhn (born 1944), bassist Klaus Koch and two Polish Jazz legends: saxophonist Michał Urbaniak and drummer Czesław Bartkowski. The album presents six pieces: three original compositions by Rolf Kuhn, two original compositions by Joachim Kuhn and one arrangement of a folk tune. Over the years this album achieved a legendary status and became a highly sought after collector's item, because of its political implications, as well as being one of the earliest East European Jazz recordings and an important cornerstone of European Jazz in general.

Rolf Kuhn's decades-long presence on the jazz scene was a stroke of luck and a gift. Rolf Kuhn was an exceptional artist, a German jazz musician of the highest caliber, one of the very few with international standing. Kuhn had no idea it would be his last recording when he met with his quartet at Berlin's Hansa Studio in late June 2022. In August that year he sadly passed away. His compositions, whether balladic or fast-paced and driving, always left room for what jazz meant to him: creating music together, letting it take flight through improvisation that thrived from listening and feeling.

This is a delightful record that features the woody clarinet of Rolf Kuhn in a variety of amicable settings. There’s an ethereal group with Dave Liebman's soprano sax and Chuck Loeb's guitar, raucous collaborations with Randy Brecker's groups, clarinet pairings with Buddy DeFranco and Eddie Daniels on boppish runs and ballads, the angular abstraction of a duet with Albert Manglesdorf, and the closer, a sweet harmolodic dance with Ornette Coleman.

Quiescence and awakening. Tradition and innovation. Body and soul. Rolf Kühn finds such opposing forces attractive. With his new album "Yellow + Blue", the 88-year-old clarinetist once again improvises and swings his way through uncharted musical territory. "Europe's greatest clarinetist and free spirit" (Jazzthetik) plays ballads and legendary love songs on his new MPS album. In so doing, he delivers new meaning and a fresh sound to the pieces. A sentimental look back is simply not his thing. Together with his new quartet of pianist Frank Chastenier, bassist Lisa Wulff, and percussionist Tupac Mantilla, Kühn contrasts his sensitive side with his unbridled desire to experiment.

Krzysztof Komeda has legendary status in Polish jazz, and was also one of the pioneers of European jazz. His wider fame resides largely in his work as a film composer – he wrote the soundtracks for all of Roman Polanski’s early films, notably "Dance of the Vampires" and "Rosemary's Baby". Komeda died in 1969, tragically early, at the age of just 37, but left a hugely influential body of work. Joachim Kühn, now a jazz piano icon in his own right, is a great admirer of Komeda, whom he met in person in Warsaw in 1965. As part of the Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic concert series, curated by Siggi Loch, he performed a major tribute concert to him on 14 October 2022, at which he played in three formats: solo piano, with his New Trio, and alongside Poland’s Atom String Quartet.

“Maybe when I’m ninety…?” When Siggi Loch first floated the idea that Joachim Kühn might like to make an album of ballads, the pianist’s response was typically jocular, even defi-ant. That initial resistance didn’t last long, however. Kühn, now in his mid-seventies, soon started to settle down at the fine Steinway in his home – he keeps it impeccably tuned – to switch on his DAT recorder, and set to work. “The advantage of being here at home in Ibiza is that I can simply make a re-cording when I want to. When the feeling comes, I just re-cord,” Kühn reflects.

You can already hear the first notes of 'Speaking Sound': With German piano great Joachim Kühn and Mateusz Smoczyński, the violinist of the highly acclaimed Polish "Atom String Quartet", two musicians have come together who, without many words, click in a real magical way and inspire each other to explore the full range of their musical possibilities - from rich and beautiful melodies, to free outbursts of energy. Chamber jazz without borders.

The youthful old jazz master has a new dream team: clear, with buckets of soul and unconfined joy, solidly grounded in the groove, this trio has a way of going straight to the heart of the matter.

A tasty trio date from this under-recognized pianist, accompanied by the fine rhythm tandem of J.F. Jenny-Clark and Daniel Humair. The album leaps into gear with the fiery "Guylene," a piece that finds Kuhn sounding like Hancock or Jarrett at their most aggressive, his bright tone cascading throughout. He has an innate lyricism that, in his softer moments, recalls Paul Bley.