Schubert Pilz Scheib Kugel – Live at FreeJazzSaar 2019 (Nemu, 2024)

Nemu is becoming, more and more, an intriguing label, a point of reference for those who are interested in knowing new artists coming from the world of improvisation but willing to listen to stuff less conditioned by the need of an easy listening as more emblazoned artists. In fact, I cannot get why many reviewers are praising some musicians, who are now becoming famous, even if in their music composition and improvisation are not really tied up. 

In listening to some albums that are acclaimed In these last months or even years, I can significantly find out a decreasing in that adventurous practice that is improvisation. There are musicians that gain important prizes and that don’t solo for an entire piece or an album. Let’s not call jazz this music. It can be even beautiful music – even if I find it boring for the most part – but it’s not jazz, even if it’s part of the African-American continuum and deserve to be respected – in fact as a critic part of my job is taking act where the music is going. 

Now, I finally had the opportunity, instead, to enjoy an album by a quartet of musicians that in 2019 took the stage of the FreeJazzSaar festival in Saarbrucken, Germany, to substitute Charles Gayle, who has unexpectedly fallen ill. The set is very energetic from the first note, and the musicians involved show a mastery as individual players as much as a collective, as a group. 

Frank Paul Schubert, who here plays alto and soprano saxophones, started playing as a self-taught musician in 1982 (being born in 1965). Between the many musicians he was involved with, you’ll be probably familiar with Alexander Von Schlippenbach and Johannes Bauer. Active with different projects like duos, quartets, etc., Schubert has a more contemporary style (as an example) on alto than his likewise references. 

Seemingly a contemporary musician can be defined Michel Pilz at bass clarinet. Differently from Eric Dolphy, just to name one, Pilz is less ‘cubist’ and anchored to tradition at the same time, as we exposed reviewing Incarnations by Mingus few days ago, but he is a proper virtuoso in his own right and his style fit perfectly with that of his partners. Devotee performer accompanied by the likes of Manfred Schoof and Michel Portal, he sadly passed away in 2023, so this record is also a beautiful occasion to pay him an homage. 

Stephan Scheib, first an electric bass player, switched on acoustic bass becoming a well renowned improviser and composer. Founder in 1987 of the Liquid Penguin Ensemble, he is devoted to mixing different forms of art, like dance, theatre, and visual arts with music. Prized with his works for radio, here in this record you can find him texturing all the music with a particular grace but also engaged in a virtuosic solo. 

Finally, drummer Klaus Kugel, active with Carl Berger, Charlie Mariano, Thomasz Stanko, Ken Carter, Kenny Wheeler, Sabir Mateen and many others is a drummer whose melodic elements and the percussive one are shared with mastery for all the recording, that features a 43 minutes long group improvisation plus a couple of encores. Hymnodic and dense as we expect this music at his best – I think about the ‘music from the lofts’ – it is one of the albums you can’t miss this year. 

I’m happy to listen to music like this, since possibly Germany, as other countries like Portugal, about which we’ll talk in the future, is finally producing some music worth of the brilliant past of this genre. In fact, this album contains timeless compositions and improvisations, the genre I bet we’ll listen to in the future years not thinking about the greater progress in the art of jazz but nonetheless with the desire to look for more or this.