Out Of Land (Live)

Album review

Recorded on the Bee-Flat scene in Berne, this live album brings together the cream of European avant-garde Jazz: the saxophonist Emile Parisien, the accordion player Vincent Peirani, the Swiss singer Andreas Schaerer and the German pianist Michael Wollny. A democratic quartet bursting with ideas, and producing sculpted improvisations as never before. The "European Jazz" label has sometimes provoked mockery. But it comes into its own with Out Of Land. Not because of the nationalities of the artists, but rather for the language they use. Because even if Peirani's accordion gives a somewhat conventional colour to the ensemble, the music on offer here is viscerally anchored in the old world. To say nothing of the phenomenal Andreas Schaerer, the vocal acrobat and dazzling stunt-singer... Far from the beaten track of your Dad's jazz and the golden age of some taxidermied hard-bop, Parisien, Peirani, Schaerer and Wollny are inventing a personal language which is nothing like that of their elders Portal, Jeanneau, Texier, Humair, Kühn, Jenny Clark, Humair and company. Demanding and fascinating. © MD/Qobuz