Klaus Koenig Seven Things Dark With Excessive Bright - Tcb37602 - Jazz

When the foundation “Pro Helvetia“ sent our group Magog to the Ljubljana Festival as the Swiss representative in 1975, we had the pleasure of meeting Art Blakey and His Jazz Messengers there, as well as pianist Cecil Taylor. One can hardly imagine anything more dissimilar than the playing styles of these two jazz greats. On one hand perhaps the leading representative of hard bop at the time, and on the other, probably the most important protagonist of free jazz, if not to say its originator. But these two artists had one thing in common: the structure of their groups.Both included two wind instruments and a trio of piano, bass and drums. Apparently, the two-wind quintet is insensitive to stylistic differences, being robust enough to convey very different musical content. No wonder then that even today, decades after our little excursion, this formation continues to exist as strong as ever – it has become “classic”.