The Invitations

This young Hungarian group play an exhilarating cross of free jazz and folk dance, drawing on the diverse traditions of their native country. Utilizing overtone singing, their music takes on a trance-like quality broken only by the spectacular pyrotechnics of the horns.

There is a pair of CDs with the beautiful longstanding German performance of the Bach's Brandenburg Concertos and Cantatas by the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducted by Karl Munchinger. Suzanne Danco was a soloist in cantatas. Recordings were made in 1950 & 1953 in the MONO regime and remastered in 2004. In the 50's the quality of the German sound-recording equipment was on the high level. That is why there are no any noises or squeeze frequency range in proposed recordings.

When this two-LP set was initially released in January 1971, Canned Heat was back to its R&B roots, sporting slightly revised personnel. In the spring of the previous year, Larry "The Mole" Taylor (bass) and Harvey Mandel (guitar) simultaneously accepted invitations to join John Mayall's concurrent incarnation of the Bluesbreakers. This marked the return of Henry "Sunflower" Vestine (guitar) and the incorporation of Antonio "Tony" de la Barreda (bass), a highly skilled constituent of Aldolfo de la Parra (drums). Sadly, it would also be the final effort to include co-founder Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, who passed away in September 1970. Hooker 'n Heat (1971) is a low-key affair split between unaccompanied solo John Lee Hooker (guitar/vocals) tunes, collaborations between Hooker and Wilson (piano/guitar/harmonica), as well as five full-blown confabs between Hooker and Heat…

Like most European countries Germany came under the influence of Italian music during the 17th century. German composers went to Italy and Italian musicians came to Germany and spread the new style there. And as at the end of the century, the cantata – closely connected to the opera - developed into one of the most prominent genres of vocal music in Italy. German composers started to use the form of the Italian cantata in their church music. In the early 18th century the Italian cantata had reached its more or less definitive form. Among its features were the da-capo aria and the clear differentiation between recitative and aria. In Germany Erdmann Neumeister published libretti for church cantatas which followed this model.

Since returning from the USA, guitarist Philipp van Endert has established himself as a distinct and unmistakable voice in the current jazz scene. He has played numerous tours and recordings throughout America and Europe, and has followed invitations from many international festivals including the prestigious Montreux Jazz Festival, The Hague Jazz, Jazz Sur Son / Toulouse, Ankara Jazz Festival and the Leverkusen Jazz Festival.