Search - Urs Leimgruber :: Blue Log

Modern saxophone.

Alexander | 08/31/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Urs Leimgruber is a saxophonist that has explored many arrays of music from contemporary, new composition to free improvisation. His early associations are with the Jazz-Rock group Om from the late 70s. From there he would expand his aesthetic from being jazz based to complete free improvisation with associations such as Swiss percussionist Fritz Hauser and French bassist, Joelle Leandre. Solo dates for Leimgruber are more or less common, with 3 releases prior to Blue Log; the naked approach is not foreign to him. His discipline & patience to create something literally from nothing is quite honorable & profound. His prior solo releases would actually be more compositional orientated with a few exceptions, but Blue Log is a complete free date with just him and his soprano & tenor saxophones.



Throughout the album, he places more emphasis on the soprano as opposed to his tenor. Though the pieces that showcase his tenor such as track 1 & track 6 are excellent examples of transcending the sound of the instrument to being so alien, it would appear as if it were being produced from other source. With placing emphasis on tongue slaps, shrills, rich multiphonics, and sharp altissimo. Though the even more brilliant aspect that he creates phases and an overall structure to the "techniques" being implied while being able to maintain an overall motive to the selected pieces.



The soprano pieces focus more on almost ear splicing altissimo, swift tonguing, quick arpeggios and recurring patterns. Track 5 is the most accessible piece on the album as it features a more conventional approach to improvising by playing a basic theme and recurring to it. It is a very delicate, beautiful piece with its own share of altissimo notes, but not as abrasive as the other pieces. In regards to motifs, track 8 presents reed pops with the sporadic share of squawks, & swift tonguing. The final piece, in which Leimgruber plays over a set of mutli-trakced interior saxophone playing & vocal drones provide a background in which Leimgruber uses to place the soprano at the foreground to mount a cohesive whole.



It is quite the shame that Urs Leimgruber is criminally under regarded. He is indeed one of the European innovators on saxophone with the likes as Evan Parker, John Butcher & Mats Gustafsson as well as his American counterparts such as Anthony Braxton & Roscoe Mitchell.



"Blue Log" is indeed his most intense & difficult solo album to date. I would not recommend it as an introduction to Leimgruber unless you are already familiar with the solo catalogue with the aforementioned contempories, then this album will provide the missing link in reed transcending.

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