If you are into free jazz this is an essential album! An insight into what was going on in European free jazz scene at the height of the movement, Global Unity presents the who’s who of German and European free jazz: Dutchman Willem Breuker, Germans Karl Berger, Gunter Hampel, Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kovald, Manfred Schoof, and the orchestra’s leader, composer-pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach. Von Schlippenbach’s compositions revolve around loosely organized structures, allowing maximal freedom in conjunction within the musicians’ role as “instantaneous composer”. The music reflects influences from such earlier ground-breaking albums as Ornette’s Free Jazz, and Coltrane’s Ascension as well as contemporary European classical. On Global Unity, intensely building orchestral passages are interspersed with Brötzmann’s blasting sonic homage to Albert Ayler and Pharoah Sanders, Schoof’s Don Cherry-inspired melodic flight and von Schlippenbach’s intensely percussive Tayloresque piano attack. Multifarious textures, space and an early taste of ethno characterize Sun, as the players exchange their traditional instruments for bells, temple blocks, triangle, duck call, lotus flute, rattles, gongs, temple blocks, etc. before eventually returning for solo and ensemble play on their more traditional instruments. Certainly not dinner music – but it’s music with bite and flavor and lots of food for thought when you’re looking for something with creative meat to it.
