Search - Briggan Krauss, Hans Tammen, Ursel Schlicht :: Hans Tammen and the Third Eye Orchestra

Why is this flying so far under the radar?

greg taylor | Portland, Oregon United States | 03/29/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a really outstanding recent big band recorded live in December, 2006 at the Roulette in NYC. The band leader, composer and realtime arranger is Hans Tammen, a player of endangered guitar.

I came across this CD while perusing the Innova web site label. What caught my attention was the personnel:

Mia Kimura, Mark Feldman- violin

Stephanis Griffin- viola

Tomas Ulrich- cello

Briggan Krauss- alto sax, baritone sax

Marty Ehrlich- bass clarinet, alto sax, flute

Robert Dick- flute, clarinet

Detlef Landeck- trombone

Dafna Naphtali- voice, live sound processing

Ursel Schlicht, Denman Maroney- piano, keyboards

Stomu Takeishi- bass

Satoshi Takeishi- drums

Tamman has composed 150+ musical units that he then strings together during the course of a performance by the Orchestra. Variations in every performance are determined by directions that Tammen makes as he conducts, by choices that the musicians make as to interpretive alternatives as they play and by their improvisations.

Obviously this requires great skill by the musicians. The solos are all outstanding. Listen to Mari Kimura start things off in the way she introduces Part 1- Opening of Antecedent on the sound samples. She more than holds her own playing with Mark Feldman (who I regard as arguably the greatest violinist in creative musics). Another strength of the recording are the Takeishi brothers. They constitute a rhythm section that is as flexible, as free and as driven as any currently working. Krauss' baritone squalls are another highlight- I love getting to hear him and Ehrlich working together.

We have been blessed with a lot of really good large ensemble music in jazz/freeimprov/creativemusics/whatevertheheckyouwanttocallit lately. Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra CDs, the TransAtlantic Ensemble CDs of Evan Parker and Roscoe Mitchell, some new Sam River's stuff that isn't on Amazon. This CD is as good as any of those. Why it seems to be so little known is beyond me. Look at that personnel listing again and listen to the samples. These guys must be heard.

"