Backgrounder: Remo Rau - Evening at Cafe Africana

Zurich's Club Africana was a stronghold of modern Swiss jazz in the early 1960s, featuring musicians such as Abdullah Ibrahim, Chris McGregor and Dudu Pukwana. The club's program director, Remo Rau, a vibraphonist, also led a house-band quartet that consisted of Remo Rau (vib), Renato Anselmi (p), Roger Dannhauer (b) and Alex Bally (d).

In May 1960, the quartet's performance at the club was recorded by RR, a Swiss private label. The recording—The Remo Rau Quartet: An Evening at the Club Africana—gives us a rare listen to Swiss jazz at the start of a new decade and features an artist whose jazz approach was singular.

The recording is super rare. Only 150 copies were printed. Now, the music can be found streaming or as a download at Bandcamp. Sonorama, a German label, issued the recording using an LP on loan from a collector. To read the album's liner notes, go here.

Here's the Remo Rau Quartet's An Evening at the Cafe Africana, without ad interruptions...