Ride Series Second Generation

Wolfgang Dauner has now been highly active on the scene for more than fifty years. Dauner hired top young musicians to be around him for the current upgrade to United 2.0. The second United generation, like the first one, is eagerly researching the crossing points between jazz, rock, funk and world music. Featuring some of the finest avant-garde jazz players from Germany and beyond the Ensemble began life in 1975. Pianist Wolfgang Dauner, initially recruiting musicians from his home base of Stuttgart (then a hotbed of avant-garde jazz), put together a rotating cast of musicians, and shared writing and arranging duties with guitarist Volker Kriegel. They recorded the first album under the United Jazz+Rock Ensemble name, Live im Schützenhaus, in 1977, to be released on the group's then founded Mood Records label. The album was a hit, eventually becoming the best-selling German jazz record of all times, and the Ensemble was awarded the "Deutscher Schallplattenpreis 1978" for artist of the year, followed by another 14 albums plus a variety of international collaborations.

"What kind of music do you play?' They never had an easy answer. This was some of it." Peter Hammill, as ever, being sincerely non-committal about style and influence, yet managing to be securely on target at the same time. Second Generation is set up as the second half of an overview of Van Der Graaf Generator, but it definitely has a bias; three of the four cuts comprising Godbluff are included here, while Vital is completely ignored, right down to the exclusion of the studio version of "Ship of Fools" (later included on I Prophesy Disaster).