Mahall/ Dörner/ Roder/Jennessen: DIE ENTTÄUSCHUNG

Dörner, Axel, Jennessen, Uli, Mahall, Rudi, Roder, Jan

INT 125

This superb Berlin foursome gained notoriety as accomplices to pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach in his audacious project to play all 71 of Thelonious Monk’s tunes in one evening – after a few performances, they committed the songs to tape for the three-CD set Monk’s Casino, released in 2005. Die Enttäuschung (“the Disappointment”) already knew the Monk repertoire, having focused on his tunes for their self-titled 1995 debut, and on their three subsequent albums – all likewise self-titled, including a new outing on Intakt – they approach their own material with a similar energy. In their tart, wildly adventurous take on hard-swinging postbop, the players brandish some of the same extended techniques they use in more radical contexts; these guys love old-school jazz, and they treat it as a living entity. Trumpeter Axel Dörner and bass clarinetist Rudi Mahall are both titanic figures on the European scene – Dörner in particular has influenced a growing number of trumpeters with his daring use of unpitched sounds. And the nimble rhythm section, bassist Jan Roder and drummer Uli Jennessen, flirts with arrhythmic abstraction but never quite gives in. • Peter Margasak, Chicago

CD x 1

Intakt Records

6/4/07

7640120191252