ROCK AROUND THE COCK

This Pierre Courbois album has the interesting distinction of having four songs (the first four) with wind player Karl- Heinz Wiberny and no keyboard player, followed by three songs without winds but with keyboard virtuoso Joachim Kühn sitting in with his (loud) electric piano.

1. "Phenis" (5:03) Oriental-sounding guitar chords with Oriental-sounding cymbal play wrapping around Toto's guitar (the Nogoya-harp?). There is an element of Popol Vuh and other Eastern-influenced Kosmische Musik bands here. In the third minute Toto picks up his pace with lots of fast-picking and tremolo-strumming as drummer Pierre and bass player Siggi join in--Pierre taking over fully for about a minute to the song's end. There is supposedly some reed instrument present being played by Karl-Heinz Wiberny but I do not hear it. (My guess is that it would be the credited "Chinese schalmei" due to the overwhelming Chinese flavor of this song.) I actuall ylike this song--it does a pretty decent job of conveying, consistently, the Asian/Chinese feel and flavor from start to finish. (8.875/10)

2. "Polar Anna" (6:40) kind of an exhibition of hyper-fast rhythm section supporting some high-flying almost-free jazz from the soloists above--first sax player Karl-Heinz Wiberny (for the first four minutes) and then fast-picker Toto Blanke for the final three minutes. Not a very melodic song--very jazzy--but very impressive instrumental skills on display (especially from the bass and drums). (8.875/10)

3. "Mirrored Dimensions" (2:40) a spacey start turns industrial (long before there was such a thing as "industrial" music) but I guess it still retains its Kosmische links. I actually like this rather unique sound exploration: cymbals, deep warbly sax notes, bowed contrabass, and wildly bent electric guitar notes. Brilliant! (5/5) 4. "Shirocco" (3:38) Siggi on double bass to open this one for about a minute of very cool sound exploration (untreated!) In the second minute he eschews exploration for more straightforward bass play, though still soloing, before Karl-Heinz Wiberny joins in with a very odd Oriental (Middle Eastern?) brass reed instrument. (Though it could be the Chinese schalmei, as credited in the album's liner notes, it sounds to me more like a bagpipe-like instrument.) The two play out as a loosely-structured duet in this loose, Middle Eastern sound palette. (8.75/10)

5. "Rock Around The Cock" (6:43) with a funky opening like this (sounds like Herbie's Head Hunters at their most funky with a super-funky bass player like Stanley Clarke) you'd never expect Bill Haley's song to be the template. As a matter of fact, we're over two minutes in and I'm still hearing nothing that remotely resembles the 1955 hit classic; I feel more as if I'm immersed in a super funky Mwandishi walkabout. Joachim Kühn's Eumir Deodato-like electric piano, Siggi Busch's funky bass, Pierre Courbois' Amazing Billy Cobham-like drumming, and Toto Blanke's raunchy Eric Gale/Larry Coryell-like electric guitar take this to a level that not many funk bands have ascended to! Despite my expectations being blown out of the water, I loved this song! (9.33333/10)

6. "Autumn In March" (7:45) scaled down slow and delicate instrument play opens this before the foursome are conjoined for the expression of a loosely-synchronized and rhythmically-linked jazz motif. Despite the fully electrified instrumental palette, these accomplished jazz artists are still very much playing jazz first and foremost, making this a clear representative of Herbie Hancock, Tony Williams, and Miles Davis-like First Wave Jazz-Rock Fusion. Both Toto and Joachim's solos are very flashy, dissonant and discordant, as all adventurous, boundary-pushing jazz musicians were doing in the 1960s, yet highly skilled. Again: a very impressive display of musicianship that fails to strike much of my "enjoyment" chords. (8.75/10)

7. "Cap Carneval" (9:07) the album's final song (and the final song of the three that include keyboard genius Joachim Kühn) starts off with a kind of one-chord free-for-all: for two minutes drummer Pierre Courbois is going crazy wild below Joachim's "stuck" one-chord electric piano pounding while Toto and Siggi noodle around with equal abandon somewhere in-between. Then, in the third minute, it's Joachim's turn to noodle around with crazy reckless abandon while Pierre, Siggi, and Toto manage to "hold it together" with some frenetic though structured noodling beneath. I don't like the volume given Joachim's electric piano as he's able to so easily dominate the others. Still, Pierre and Siggi cannot avoid being noticed as their frenzied play is mind-bogglingly rapido. At 6:40 Joachim, Siggi, and Toto take a beer break while Pierre solos for a minute, but then they all come busting back in, racing to the end. (Which makes me wonder: who won? I'd guess Joachim.) Impressive but only enjoyable for the skills on display: there is little or no melody--even in chord progression. (What chord progressions?) (17.5/20)

Total time: 41:36

Though by no means a bad album, the music here is expressing a kind of fusion that is more akin to that of free jazz infused with World musical ideas and sounds (much as many German contemporaries were experimenting with at the same time.) Pierre Courbois' version of this East-West fusion, however, comes across as much more rooted in classic jazz or the more recent free forms of "free jazz" which, unfortunately, renders it practically dissonant, atonal, chaotic, and, for me, not very enjoyable. (I appear to need melody and structure.) I will never, however, argue that these musicians are not virtuosi of their respective instruments--which is what makes rating these songs and album so incongruous: I know they are geniuses, I just don't like all of their music on this album!

B+/4.5 stars; a near-masterpiece of First Wave Jazz-Rock Fusion.