Dresden is the first live album issued under Jan Garbarek's name, a complete concert by his group spread across two discs. It caught the band at a turning point. Earlier in 2007 Eberhard Weber, part of Garbarek's core sound for three decades, had been sidelined by illness, and the Norwegian saxophonist rebuilt the rhythm section around a new bassist. The set mixes pieces from across his career with music not recorded before.
The concert was taped on 20 October 2007 at the Alter Schlachthof in Dresden. Garbarek plays soprano and tenor saxophones and the selje flute, the Norwegian overtone flute. Rainer Brüninghaus, in the group since 1988, plays piano and keyboards, the Brazilian Yuri Daniel is the new bassist, and Manu Katché is on drums. Garbarek produced the album with Manfred Eicher, and it was mixed at Rainbow Studio in Oslo with Jan Erik Kongshaug.
The opener, Paper Nut, was written by the Indian violinist L. Shankar for Song for Everyone in 1984. Here Garbarek states its chanting theme before taking off into a long solo. Milton Nascimento's Milagre Dos Peixes builds slowly over almost thirteen minutes. Twelve Moons, The Tall Tear Trees and There Were Swallows return from the album Twelve Moons, while Rondo Amoroso arranges a piece by the Norwegian composer Harald Sæverud. Once I Dreamt A Tree Upside Down was first heard on a record by Trilok Gurtu. Among the new pieces, Heitor struck Textura as close to the Wayne Shorter songbook, and Nu Bein' rests on a Nubian rhythm, introduced on the selje flute. Katché has a solo spot in Grooving Out! before the dramatic encore, Voy Cantando.
John Fordham wrote in The Guardian that the record "marks a Garbarek group with impact", noting that the windswept, folk-tinged Garbarek is still present in the ballads. John Kelman at All About Jazz found the closing Voy Cantando surprisingly funky. In The Absolute Sound, Jeff Wilson wrote that "Garbarek's jazz sensibility has never been more evident".
This is the double CD on ECM Records, ECM 2100/01, first released in September 2009, ahead of the group's autumn tour, and packaged in an O-card.
