Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » Hans Koller: Wild Roses

149

Hans Koller: Wild Roses

By

View read count
Hans Koller: Wild Roses
Composer/orchestrator/pianist Hans Koller's most groundbreaking achievements to date have been his big band projects, which have picked up and carried forward in the UK the playful and quirky iconoclasm of the late, marvellous Loose Tubes. Mentored early on by veteran experimentalist Michael Gibbs, and building too on Gil Evans' textural inventions, Koller's big bands—which feature emergent young stylists alongside major names like Stan Sulzmann, Julian Siegel, Henry Lowther, and Evan Parker—are in the tradition but always pushing and tickling the envelope.

This new trio album with bassist Dave Whitford and drummer Gene Calderazzo, regular small group and big band compadres, is a more conventional and rough and ready affair than Koller's big bands. Recorded on-the-hoof in a day last summer, it's a romping, exuberant, standards and head arrangements shaped affair, with consistently dynamic, high energy contributions from all three players (only Bill Frisell's midway "Throughout" and Koller's closing "Paris Blues" cool and slow down to the relatively reflective).

Standouts are Herbie Nichols' "2300 Skidoo" and "The Third World," Mingus' gorgeous "Peggy's Blue Skylight," and Koller's "Wild Roses" and "Paris Blues," the first elliptical, the second lushly lyrical. The two Monk covers, "Pannonica" and "Bye-Ya," don't go anywhere we haven't been before, but they're boss tunes, performed with muscle and respect.

Unapologetically in the pre-EST piano trio tradition—in energy, expansiveness and in-the-moment abandon—Wild Roses harks back to the great trio albums Hampton Hawes made with Red Mitchell and Chuck Thompson in the mid '50s. But unlike Hawes, and as an added bonus, Koller gives generous space to his partners on the bass and drums, and these two men fill it with plenty of their own fire and passion.

Not a revolution then, but a good time ruckus to be sure.

Track Listing

2300 Skidoo; Remember Rockefeller At Attica; Wild Roses; Peggy's Blue Skylight; Throughout; The Third World; The Eternal City; Pannonica; Bye-Ya; Paris Blues.

Personnel

Hans Koller
saxophone, alto

Hans Koller, piano; Dave Whitford, bass; Gene Calderazzo, drums.

Album information

Title: Wild Roses | Year Released: 2005 | Record Label: Unknown label

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.