Friday, July 11, 2008

Csaba Deseö - "Four String Tschaba" (MPS, 1974)




'Für Kinder' excerpt

Hungarian violinist Csaba Deseö has maintained careers in both the classical and jazz worlds, despite looking like he's been painted here by a mental patient - but on this, his debut MPS release as a leader in 1974, we're definitely on a jazz tip/trip.

It could hardly been otherwise, with Peter Herbolzheimer's hard-working band behind him. Fresh from Herbolzheimer's "Galactic Light Orchestra" album come Dieter Reith (keyboards), Åke Persson (trombone), Günter Lenz (bass) and Ronnie Stephenson (drums). All bar Stephenson had recently also been on Herbolzheimer's Rhythm Combination & Brass blistering "Live At Ronnie Scotts"

Deseö was going through an electric period, driving his violin and viola through a wah-wah pedal in tracks like "Für Kinder" ("For Children"). Despite this, whether it's jazz, classical or any other musical form, Hungarian composers tend to reference their folk roots - Bela Bartok, for example, was the sound recordist on most of the ethnographic recordings of Hungarian folk musics in the early part of the 20th century, then incorporated the structures into his music. With Deseö, you can particularly hear Hungarian folk references in the melodies and harmonies of tracks like "Roof Dancer", as well as his scratchy folk style and tonal slides.

Besides Deseö, the main soloist here is saxaphonist Wolfgang Engstfeld, who you can also hear on the Klauss Weiss Ensemble's MPS album "Drum box", also from 1974.

Dieter Reith
is mainly on the rhodes here, bringing in piano for the excellent "Reith Right On", and arp and string synths in "Closed", which has a sort of mid-period George Duke feel in its arrangement. If you don't know it already, check out his solo date "Knock Out", as well as more Herbolzheimer dates like the superb "Waitaminute" and "Wide Open"
Trombonist Åke Persson also featured on "Wide Open", but his regular gig was as a member of Francy Boland and Kenny Clarke's various big bands throughout the 60s and early 70s, albums like "Sax No End", "More Smiles", "Handle With Care", Mark Murphy's "Midnight Mood" and Sihab Shihab's "Companionship" (file 1 - file 2). Tragically, on February 5th, 1975, Persson was found dead in his car at the bottom of the Djurgarden canal.

Apart from the Herbolzheimer albums, bass player Günter Lenz appeared on albums like Wolfgang Dauner's "Knirsch" and the live album "Leon Thomas In Berlin", as well as records by Albert Mangelsdorff and Volker Kriegel. Drummer Ronnie Stephenson also appears on two sought-after 60s dates by the Paul Gonsalves Quartet and Ronnie Ross
One more thing -
As I start to research in jazz, which is a very new thing for me, it’s becoming abundantly clear that when it comes to 70s jazz, funky jazz, and particularly anything with a fender Rhodes on it – the ‘established’ jazz sites are still playing dumb and have huge gaps in their analysis and cataloguing – entire movements and groups of musicians are missing from sites like allmusic, and we're lucky to have blogs like Orgy in Rhythm in order to get a decent history and to make sense of musical connections.
So special thanks to OIR, as well as El Goog Ja, Blog-O-Blog, Happy as a Fat Rat, kinebeeszounds, and of course MPS-Love for providing the pieces to this particular puzzle.
Hope you enjoy the album!

TRACKLIST

01
Roof Dancer
02
Für Kinder
03
Makin' Whoopee
04
Rock Talk
05
Reith Right On
06
Something Blue
07
Closed

MUSICIANS


Csaba Deseö - violin, viola
Wolfgang Engstfeld - saxaphones
Åke Persson - trombone
Dieter Reith - rhodes, piano, synths
Günter Lenz - bass
Ronnie Stephenson - drums



Direct Rapidshare links in this post originally uploaded by Bacoso at "Orgy in Rhythm".

28 comments:

Dr. Johnny Fever said...

Very nice Simon!! and thanks for the additional links and as always the history lesson. Glad to see you liked the Bobby Jackson too. I really appreciate your constant feedback on my spot. Thanks for this great post!!!

Peace.........Dr. Fever

Simon666 said...

Hey Dr Johnny, glad you like it. Your Bobby Jackson is the rhodes post of the week :)

Gianni aka Cesare Barbetta said...

thanks simon!
again a new great post!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for this post.I'm really getting into some of the european jazz that, as you rightly say, has been virtually ignored by the mainstream.
Thanks too for the alternative link.
I've had problems with rapidshare since the recent changes they made
so the extra option is deeply appreciated!
Cheers Dean

ish said...

Thanks Simon for unearthing another dose of MPS.

MPS's reach across the old "iron curtain" to eastern European musicians was one of its most extraordinary features.

As for AMG, the music literary establishment, and any kind of '70s jazz, bah humbug. That's why I created jazzsupreme.com now many years ago because I was so uncomfortable with narrow-minded jazz purists who imagined jazz somehow dormant between the last Coltrane/Miles collaboration in what, 1961, and Wynton Marsalis in the 1990s. I'm so glad of the underground fan base that has developed in the meantime, and its most happiest innovation, being able to give this stuff away to anyone who will listen.
Yay for the internets.

el goog said...

hey simon !!
ARE YOU A SPAMMER :)

Thank you for inviting me.
I come here and now I'm downloading.
I learnt a lot again by your favor.

peace!!
el goog

katonah said...

yeah, more sweets from the rhodes.
lovin that potato print cover !!

Reza said...

Great find thanks Simon and thanks also for alt dl link, rapidshare getting very slow these days

And what did I see Ish with another website , what a busy boy :)

ish said...

Well I'm kind of pleasantly exhausted with three music blogs. Not enough time to listen to all the music I'm exposed to. But amazingly, new stuff keeps turning up on the MPS site all the time. Somebody has promised two more Jonny Teupens and the MPS concert with Mark Murphy, and somebody else just sent me that Singers Unlimited boxset ripped up which I will divide and post the few separate not-yet posted albums. I did make a joke about starting a Madonna blog to counteract all this jazz seriousness. That will stay a joke! Simon was it you who suggested a Muse website? I think that would be a great idea for...Simon!
:)

Simon666 said...

Muse ? I think we'll get El Goog on to that :)

el goog said...

Hey Simon, call me :)

Of course, I cooperate in Muse as a contributor.
Simon, you can do that.

Simon666 said...

Oh no!
my joke is turning back on me :)
I'm trying to clear more time to work on my ONE blog more. Muse looks too scary

AMM said...

many thanks simon-another gem unearthed m8!

Economiewurm said...

Thanx for the music as well as for the background info.

mr.gone said...

ah, the magic words - herboltzheimer, reith, mps & rhodes...thank you!

Simon (mr.gone)

swboy said...

Simon--This is a treat to hear.
I'm a jazz violin player and obsessively (I guess...:^)
look for violin improvisors.
Didn't know anything about this
recording. Thanks so much! I've got a few odds & ends featuring Rhodes. Will dig them out & send when I can. my best---sw

Simon666 said...

Thanks for comments guys.
Just noting that the post now has a lot of dead links (8 in fact) as "Orgy in Rhythm" is no more ...

Anonymous said...

Yeah, just noticed that as well...DAMN!
Great post by the way :¬)

/Lafayette

Simon666 said...

Thanks Laf :)

OK all album links replaced now.

dsw said...

Wow, what a great record. Simon, thanks for the share and for your typically high standard of posting. In regards to gathering info in this particular area, there's much to be had in the Jazzin' The Black Forest tome that covers half of my coffee table. Uh, it helps if you have excellent eyesight and can speak German.

As far as the back stories on non-MPS musicians, I share ISH's frustration with the general lack of info (and moreso respect) from the jazzerati. As a counterbalance, this blogosphere-- y'all know who you are-- has been instrumental in reigniting my passion for the music.

Finally, it's sad to see Bacoso close his shop but I can fully understand the energy cycles that fuel these activities. Wish we could've met in person, as I'd have loved to share a live conversation and a few drinks.

peace,
heiku

Simon666 said...

Hi Heiku -

Ich kann Deutsch sprechen aber leider sind meine Augen sehr schlecht!

Re "Orgy In Rhythm" - I too was devastated at the closing of his blog, but see the next post here for some slightly happy news ...

kizza said...

Fantastic post - much appreciated! And congrats on it being a virgin and all! Hehe!

Nigel said...

Laughed hard at the "painted by a mental patient" comment. It's so true. Thanks for posting.

Simon666 said...

Hi Nigel -
We had fun with this cover over here

Robichaud74 said...

Hi Simon, I've been a long-time fan of your blog and just wanted to let you know that I have a new blog up with a post of Csaba's 1977 album "Ultraviola". Check it out here:

http://flightneverending.blogspot.com/2009/04/csaba-deseo-ultraviola-hungary-1977.html

The blog is mainly dedicated to rare jazz-rock/fusion (and a little prog) material that might not be to your tastes, but a lot of the albums I post do have a lot of Rhodes, so please come check it out sometime!

Simon666 said...

thanks fusionaut :)

humppazoid said...

Hi!
Thank You for this one.
btw - is any chance to get his Blue String album?

Simon666 said...

Don't know that one sorry ...