Some may be surprised that after about 40 years, when they started first collaborating with each other in the Peter Brötzmann Quintet, and later in the Alexander von Schlippenbach's Globe Unity, Kris Wanders and Mani Neumeier made their first CD together. During those forty years they went in quite different directions musically.
When Mani visited Australia they connected again and the collaboration proceeded in fits and starts with different musicians. Finally they came up with the concept of using two horns, guitar, double bass and drums, which has resulted in a unifying musical direction. The importance of this collaboration is the interaction between the musicians based on relationship and trust. This made it possible to produce complete creative freedom, feeling and emotion in the music.
The music has evolved since the time of their first collaboration. This apparent make-over of so called “free jazz” is often mistakenly thought to be the result of changes in the style itself. Instead it is the social milieu in which the music now finds itself that has changed. And while it may seem that the music has only recently awoken from a protracted sonic hibernation, it has in fact been wide awake since alarm bells opened its eyes for the first time in the 1960's. Unfortunately we live in a time where progressive politics are in retreat and where the social gains of the last half century are steadily being unravelled. Even worse, we find ourselves the subjects of a home-grown fundamentalism – this time of the market.
Yet, here we encounter a music that has successfully resisted being turned into a commodity. We hear a music that stands radically for the social, and which seeks to speak a truth unaffected by fashion or self interest. We confront a music whose sound remains raw, primal, urgent, ecstatic and, most of all, spontaneous. In the social realm these qualities have acted, time and time again, as the touchstone of cultural renewal and regeneration. It is the desire for a return to these qualities in public life that gives their manifestation in free jazz added significance and draws our attention to the music once more.
Listen back to Pojama People with Chris Pearson for a live set from Kris Wanders & Mani Neumeier Quintet.
