TOM PREHN
Quartet / Kvartet
Atavistic Unheard Music Series
UMS/ALP 221CD


This CD comes with a little sticker on the front that raves One of the monumental sleepers of the 60s Danish pianist Tom Prehn and his highly individual, restlessly creative free jazz unit waxed this astounding, unjustly obscure LP in 1967. Though I am no scholar, I am not afraid to say that I probably know more about obscure European jazz artists than most people. The fact that Id never, ever, heard of Prehn or any of the guys in his Kvartet made the mystery all the more juicy. I took the bait and immediately purchased this CD at my local megastore. I was not disappointed. Prehn and his Kvartet play fresh, invigorating Free music that draws equally from the ecstatic / agonistic strain in Jazz (think Ayler, Cecil, perhaps late-60s Coltrane) and experimental, avant-garde classical music (Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ligeti, etc.).

In fact, at the time this recording was made, Prehn was engaged in formal musical studies with Witold Lutoslawski and Earle Brown. In the liner notes, Prehn asserts that his music was a reaction against the dominance of American jazz on the Danish scene. It may also have served as a release from the stiff formality of the academic music establishment. Prehns inclusion of compositional elements derived from contemporary classical music into a free jazz context parallels, in many ways, the early developmental stages of German avant-garde jazz. The German movement, which also started in the mid-1960s, was instigated by musicians unlike Tom Prehn, all now quite familiar to jazz fans such as Wolfgang Dauner, Manfred Schoof, Gunter Hampel and Alexander von Schlippenbach (the latter three were students of composer Bernd Alois Zimmerman). Yet, Prehns modus operandi is highly personal, and his music is quite distinct.

The opening track, in which Prehn and bassist Ehlers add pleasantly disorienting percussive effects by slapping and poking their instruments, is brief, furious and fetchingly abstract. Modus Vivendi is through-composed, with Fritz\ Kroghs tenor superimposing animal-like bleats over a repetitive, malevolent piano figure. The Armed Man has a snappy, oblique theme from which Prehn springs into improvisatory action. This gives way to a gentle, folk-derived melody from which Ehlers spins a lengthy, eloquent bass solo. Xenia, written by Krogh, is a turbulent ballad that highlights the saxophonists strengths, and his shortcomings.

Some of this music sounds as if it could be from a great, long-lost ESP session, though Prehn and his group seem to have gotten well beyond the cathartic effect of unadulterated, unbridled musical freedom. The interaction between the group members is quite intimate, and all pay great attention to space, dynamics and sonic weight. Drummer Preben Vang is especially valuable in this regard. He also has first-rate jazz chops, and uses them to give the music a visceral, knotty impact. The weak link is Krogh, whose chops arent quite up to his musical ideas. As a result, he is only intermittently effective despite having a big, and rather pleasant, sound.

In the end, the Prehn Kvartett CD lives up to its hype. Jon Corbett is to be commended for bringing this wonderful music out of the world of the Vinyl Freaks.


--Dave Wayne


Track Listing: 1. For Instance; 2. Modus Vivendi; 3. Progress; 4. From Here to Marathon; 5. The Armed Man; 6. Xenia; 7. It Was A Sunday Morning


Personnel: Prehn, piano; Poul Ehlers, bass; Fritz Krogh, tenor saxophone; Preben Vang, drums