Favorite Euro Jazz albums?

[joeperucki]

Franz Koglmann

Another vote for Koglmann (although not EFI) from me. I went nuts over what you are requesting in the 90's and rarely go back. Koglmann though... anytime - I love his music and all of it.
Another recommendation I had to mention - this time EFI - is Schlippenbach/Parker/Lovens - Elf bagatellen - FMP CD27 - stellar

[negative potential]

Pardon me, but I don't get it. How do you order from the FMP site?

Well, there are two FMP sites, the "official" site affiliated with Jost Gebers, and a rump site run by Helma Schleif. The latter you can order from, but there are slim pickings these days.

Basically, almost a decade ago Jost Gebers decided to cease active involvement with FMP, and made a licensing agreement with Schleif to allow her to press and market CDs, but no creative decision making or production decisions. Also, around 2000, Gebers basically wrote a letter to the Berlin Senate saying that the Total Music Meeting would not be taking place and abdicating any claims to funding. Schleif stepped into the breach and produced a "mini" TMM in 2000, and along with Wolfgang Fuchs continued to host the TMM until 2009.

I think in 2008 the agreement lapsed for Schleif to press and market FMP CDs, which is why so much stuff is unavailable at the moment. A lot of the more acclaimed recordings are now available on Jazzwerkstatt, while some historical stuff is available on Atavistic. Also, a trickle of stuff still comes out on the Gebers run FMP, which seems to have emerged from hibernation.

One interesting thing about the Schleif/Fuchs run TMMs is that they were actually far broader than the previous ones. They weren't really limited to standard Free Jazz stuff. You'd have a wide range of artists encompassing people like Fennesz, Charlotte Hug, Serge Baghdassarians/Boris Baltschun, Sophie Agnel, but also the kind of artists you would expect like Schlippenbach, Evan Parker, John Butcher, etc. That sort of big tent approach is missing these days. Now the Jazzwerkstatt series seems to cater to the more orthodox Free Jazz stuff, while the more non-idiomatic improv still exists around things like Echtzeitmusik (Although many of the musicians around the latter are also admirably broad minded, playing with guys like Henry Grimes or Ken Vandermark, for example).

[Red]

Looking forward to checking out these suggestions! Lots of trails here to follow, so thanks.

One other thing - any particular recommends among the FMP titles for sale digitally? (I've got a few Brotzmann titles through Unheard Music Series and liked those. Not familiar with many of the others.)

The Destination: OUT site allows one to listen to the tracks before buying, so why not give them a spin? I'm not really familiar with the Noah Howard discs, but the others are all good documents of that era of European free jazz---multi-national rather than parochial, free-wheeling, energetic, often absurdist. I sometimes forget how powerful and fun and funny a lot of that music is.

[johnson]

At last, a copy of Bailey & Coe "Time", I had on LP back in the 80s.

That's the first one I went for!

[martin]

At last, a copy of Bailey & Coe "Time", I had on LP back in the 80s.

That's the first one I went for!

Stunning and ultimately beautiful. Hadn't listened to this for many years when I recently pulled the LP out from the shelves to digitalize it. And it still sounds great. There ain't a better proof than "Time" of how versatile a free improviser the Pink Panther is.