Rolf Kühn, Joachim Kühn

2025 stock The reissue of Rolf & Joachim Kühn Quartet’s "Re-Union In Berlin" on b.free is a welcome resurrection of a historic German jazz masterpiece. This album, first recorded in 1965, captures the Kühn brothers at a creative peak, blending modal jazz with free improvisation in ways that still sound fresh and daring today.

"Re-Union In Berlin" showcases Rolf Kühn’s virtuosic clarinet lines and Joachim Kühn’s exploratory piano, supported by Klaus Koch on bass and Reinhard Schwartz on drums. Each track navigates between structured melody and free-form passages, most notably in pieces like "Green Stocking" and "Life From The Moon," where the transition from modal jazz to freer expressions takes shape.

Recorded in Berlin during the 1960s, the album is emblematic of East German jazz’s brief but intense flowering before political circumstances intervened. This LP became a sought-after collector’s item and a “holy grail” for GDR jazz fans, rarely available outside Germany and never previously reissued properly until now.