 Reto Weber founded the Percussion Orchestra together with two very different master drummers 20 years ago: Nana Twum Nketia from Ghana and Djamchid Chemirani from Iran. In the 80s, the Percussion Orchestra held numerous concerts internationally with its original members. At times, important drummers from other world cultures joined the trio, such as Zakir Hussain from India, Dom Um Romao from Brazil and Adama Dramé from Burkina Faso. The Percussion Orchestra has been performing with prominent jazz soloists for approximately 10 years. Albert Mangelsdorff was the first. His long years of fascinating collaboration are documented, for example, on the CD “Live at Montreux Jazz Festival” (double moon records 71009). Two other players of wind instruments later became the most important partners: Chico Freeman and Franco Ambrosetti. In addition, strong collaboration developed with Christy Doran, who is one of the leading experiment guitarists in Europe. Today, four percussionists form the actual core of the orchestra. Djamchid Chemirani on the Persian frame drum Zarb (or Tombak) and Muthuswamy Balasubramonlam on the southern Indian double-skin drum Mridangam dazzle with their highly virtuous, ingenious (finger) drumming. Mustapha Tettey Addy from Ghana, who replaced Nana Twum Nketia (who died much too young), sets a counterpart with his powerful, earthy rhythms. He contributes his energy-filled impulses on the West African drums with a great deal of sensitivity without ever drowning out the dynamically weaker instruments. Reto Weber on the drums, water drum, earthenware jug, steel drums, etc., plays less solo in the forefront, but instead provides the required frame or structure for the temporal sequence of the whole; he keeps the Percussion Orchestra together. But he also demonstrates the fact that he is a brilliant drummer in his own song “Togetherness”: fireworks on a water drum. At the Berlin Music Festival, the Percussion Orchestra mainly played pieces from the repertoire, which they have developed bit by bit over the past 20 years. But this does not at all mean that the wind instrument soloists were forced to stay within strict limits. To the contrary, the flexible concept of the Percussion Orchestra also provides soloists with a great deal of leeway. As the individual percussionists each contribute their own style, the soloists also get the chance to develop their individual skills. With Chico Freeman and Franco Ambrosetti, two very different wind instrument players meet up with the Percussion Orchestra. Freeman, the great saxophonist from Chicago, is at home in many different music styles. His expressive range is enormous and ranges from the simplest, tender melodies to explosive screams and all the way to noisy sounds on the border of silence. He proves this impressively on this CD in an extended intro to “Wake Keeping” (an expressive piece in memory of Nana Twum Nketia). The Swiss trumpeter Franco Ambrosetti, often called a hardbop stylist, demonstrates his special strengths in lean, fast and elegant flowing melody lines as in his intro to “Landscapes”. Together, Freeman and Ambrosetti have a few surprisingly rich dialogs, which also allow quite a bit of friction and ruptures.
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