300 copies. Recorded on 11th April, 2007 at Park West Studio by Jim Clouse. The Ullmann/Swell Quartet is the latest format of Gebhard Ullmann and Steve Swell with bassist Hill Greene and legendary drummer Barry Altschul. This emotional and intense quartet was founded in 2004 and toured in the U.S. and Canada in the same year. in October and November of 2006 the Ullmann/Swell 4 performed in Europe for the first time and got raving reviews. More tours in the U.S. and Canada followed 2007 and 2008.
Seve Swell – trombone
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Steve Swell has been living, working and performing in New York City for all of his adult life. He has toured and recorded with such diverse jazz personalities as mainstreamers Lionel Hampton and Buddy Rich, to so-called outsiders like Anthony Braxton, William Parker and Jemeel Moondoc. Swell has twelve recordings as a leader or co-leader and is a featured artist on more than sixty other releases.
He first came to public attention performing with Makanda Ken Mcintyre in the multi-instrumentalist's concert at Carnegie Recital hall in 1985. he toured and recorded with altoist Tim Berne and his group 'Caos Totale.' (two cds on the JMT label). during this time Steve also toured and recorded with Joey Baron's 'Barondown' who released three cds on JMT, New World and Avant.
Even though he is identified with the 'downtown scene' Swell has been developing his style in the more so-called 'traditional avant-garde' arena. Co-leading projects such as 'Space, Time, Swing' with Perry Robinson, being a sideman in William Parker's 'Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra' and working with other similar people has kept him on this circuit. his newest cd, 'Unified Theory of Sound, This Now' featuring Jemeel Moondoc, Cooper-Moore, Wilber Morris, Kevin Norton and Matt Lavelle, was released on the Cadence label in March 2003. Swell was a featured soloist in Anthony Braxton's opera, 'Shala Fears for the Poor'.
Gebhard Ullmann – saxophones, bass clarinet
Born on Nov. 2, 1957 in Bad Godesberg, Germany saxophonist (tenor and soprano), bass clarinetist, bass flutist and composer Gebhard Ullmann studied in hamburg and moved to Berlin in 1983. Since then he has recorded about 40 CDs as a leader/co-leader for prestigious labels such as Black Saint/Soul Note (Italy), Leo Records (UK), between the lines (Germany), 482 Music (USA), Songlines recordings (Canada), CIMP (USA), NotTwo records (Poland), Jazzwerkstatt (Germany), Clean Feed (Portugal) and others. He is considered one of the leading personalities in today's Berlin and international scenes and has received several awards for his work including the Julius Hemphill composition award ('99), the Deutsche Phonoakademie Award ('83), one of the first SWF Jazz awards ('87) and the nomination "Best Jazz CD of the Year" by the German Schallplattenkritik for his CD "tá lam" in 1995. his CDs "Final Answer" (2002) "The Bigband Project (2004) and "New Basement Research" (2008) were listed in Downbeat Magazine among the best CDs of those years. in 2005 the Downbeat critics poll listed him for the first time in the category rising star and since then several times.
Since 1993 Ullmann was a recording artist for Soul Note and has been living in New York and Berlin since. he has toured with his music throughout Europe as well as Africa, Canada, New Zealand, the USA, South East Asia and Mexico and performed on most of the world's most prestigious jazz festivals.
Hill Greene – bass
Hilliard 'Hill' Greene is an extraordinary musician and composer. For the past fifteen years, he has served as bassist and musical director for the great Jimmy Scott and the Jazz Expressions. Notably, he has also played and recorded with Dave Douglas, Charles Gayle, Oliver Lake, Jack Walrath, and Kenny Barron. A rare bassist who not only exemplifies the art of swing through his masterful walking bass lines, Hill Greene also brings something entirely new and fresh to the instrument.
Barry Altschul – drums
In the early '70s, Altschul was the drummer for the influential band Circle - a band which also included Chick Corea, Dave Holland and Anthony Braxton. His drumming with that band was stylistically all-encompassing - in his own words, "from ragtime to no time" - thanks to his background in traditional jazz styles, which gave him a solid grounding on which to build his free playing. Altschul's sound is very tight and exceedingly well-defined. a strict attention to rhythmic and tonal detail has always characterized his playing.
Altschul played regularly with pianist Paul Bley; their relationship continued intermittently through the '70s and '80s. He was a member of the 'Jazz Composer's Guild' and the 'Jazz Composer's Orchestra Association' from 1964-68. In the '70s, he recorded with the individual members of Circle. In '72, under Holland's leadership, the classic album 'Conference of the Birds' with Braxton and saxophonist Sam Rivers. Around this time he also made records with bley, bassist Alan Silva, and pianist Andrew Hill, among others.
In the '80s, Altschul made records of his own for Soul Note and continued his sideman work with such musicians as pianist Simon Nabotov and Kenny Drew, Sr. Altschul's 1985 album 'That's Nice' shows him to be an exciting and good-humored bandleader in a rather modern-mainstream vein.
