Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Gunter Hampel Group: Music From Europe

193

Gunter Hampel Group: Music From Europe

By

View read count
Gunter Hampel Group: Music From Europe


Gunter Hampel (vibraphone, bass clarinet and flute) grew up studying German folk and European classical music. When he was eight he heard Louis Armstrong and jazz for the first time. Though he did not understand a word of English, he felt Armstrong communicating with him. This had an indelible influence and Hampel went on to win several jazz competitions. Hampel became a professional jazz musician in 1958 when he was 21. His ideas moved in a different direction from Armstrong, blowing in the billows of free jazz across Europe.



Given his direction and his innovations, it is not surprising that Hampel drew several musicians into his sphere of influence, including Anthony Braxton. He has performed with Marion Brown, Enrico Rava and Manfred Schoof among a wide range of free jazz votaries. Here he is joined with the young multi-reed player Willem Breuker, who would go on to carve his own indelible niche particularly with his 10 piece ensemble, Kollektief.



Hampel says that this music is designed to communicate. In doing so he opens the floodgates for the musicians, letting them take the written note and expound on it.



Breuker and Hampel are protagonists as well as antagonists. They find a compact terrain in composition as well as the hotbed of intense improvisation. "Assemblage" with seven segments has Hampel's vibes settling into the melody and soaking in without extending the body. That's the calm before the storm as the quartet opens out with Breuker blowing molten lines and Hampel cutting in with undulating notes on the flute. It's raw and earthy, and certainly a pointer to the direction that both Hampel and Breuker would develop and take with them.



"Make Love Not War to Everybody" is divided into four parts. Each lends itself to a different point of performance all rolled into the fabric of free expression. And so the Chinese cymbal is bowed, they raise their voices in wordless song and find solace in the assemblage on the last part which throbs from the deep feeling they bring in.



It was early days for Hampel but his music had more than an element of discovery that made it persuasive.

Track Listing

Assemblage (Suite dedicated to Wolfgang Kopetsch); Heroicredolphysiognomystery; Make Love Not War to Everybody (Piece in 4 Parts).

Personnel

Gunter Hampel
woodwinds

Willem Breuker: soprano, alto, tenor and baritone saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet; Gunter Hampel: vibraphone, bass clarinet, flute; Piet Veening: bass; Pierre Courbois: percussion.

Album information

Title: Music From Europe | Year Released: 2008 | Record Label: ESP Disk

Tags

Comments


PREVIOUS / NEXT




Support All About Jazz

Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who make it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

Go Ad Free!

To maintain our platform while developing new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity, we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for as little as $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination vastly improves your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Tramonto
John Taylor
Ki
Natsuki Tamura / Satoko Fujii
Duality Pt: 02
Dom Franks' Strayhorn
The Sound of Raspberry
Tatsuya Yoshida / Martín Escalante

Popular

Old Home/New Home
The Brian Martin Big Band
My Ideal
Sam Dillon
Ecliptic
Shifa شفاء - Rachel Musson, Pat Thomas, Mark Sanders
Lado B Brazilian Project 2
Catina DeLuna & Otmaro Ruíz

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.

Install All About Jazz

iOS Instructions:

To install this app, follow these steps:

All About Jazz would like to send you notifications

Notifications include timely alerts to content of interest, such as articles, reviews, new features, and more. These can be configured in Settings.