Carl Drewo, Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band

*2022 stock* Three – instead of – four this figure can mean a whole different world, when it comes to beats. Whereas the even number lets you march straight, turns right-angled, divides itself symmetrically, the odd rhythm goes around in circles and whirls. One heavy step, followed by two light ones, that can not go straight, that has to turn and turn and turn. The old Vienna and its young people was once ruled by “Waltz speeding” as today the beat shakes up even country dancefloors. Yet, that could not kill the Viennese Waltz. Immortal, it has pushed its way into musicals, revuen and concert halls. Even Jazz can not manage without the Waltz. As a result, the record is driven by the “Swaying beat”. Francis Boland and Bora Rokowicz made it into Big Band sound, wrapped it ingeniously and garnished it with bells, “Marimbasounds” and Bongos. The composers of the album constitute a real international band (13 musicians from 8 nations). It is lead by the unstoppable drums of the Afro-American Kenny Clarke and the piano play of the gentle Belgian Boland. Johan Strauß is among them, Richard Strauß, Franz Léhar, George Gershwin, Carl Drevo and Jimmy Woode, the intelligente bass of the band.

This Big German Band – as the location is Cologne – without Germans, have sold their records so far mainly in the United States. But now amongst other things it is being released to the German market with this “twen-Produktion”. The following are the musicians who were gathered in the Cologne studio: Kenny Clarke, from Paris, one of the founders of the Modern Jazz quartet, Bebop-father and together with Art Blakey and Max Roach one of the most significant jazz-drummers ever. Francis Boland, the sensitive pianist and Arrangeur from Namur, who worked one after the other for Aimé Barelli, Count Basie, Woody Hermann, Kurt Edelhagen and Werner Müller, who also became well-known over the Belgian border. From Stockholm came the trombonist Åke Persson and the bariton-saxophonist Sahib Shihab, who this time produced together with Sadi from Belgium the incredible introduction for the “springvoices Waltz” on the flute. Trumpeter Benny Bailey left Munich and met here with Jimmy Deuchar, Great Britain, Dusko Gojkovic, Jugoslavia, Shake Keane, Jamaica, Nat Peck, USA, Derek Humble, Great Britain and Sal Nistico, Italy. Ahead of them all is the Vienesse tenor saxophonist Carl Drevo, who demonstrates here profile to the sounds of his home country. What they produce is powerful swinging music with a fresh sound, which covers the former melodies of that time with a beaming gleam of today and gives lavish Big Band jewelry to the compositions. - Hans Hermann Köper