IRENE SCHWEIZER/RUDIGER CARL/PAUL LOVENS/RADU MALFATTI/HARRY MILLER - Ramifications

 

(Originally published on Facebook, 3 January 2025)

 

Happy 2025 to one and all, and it's time to press on with my Ogun Records reviews. On this occasion I look at one of the stranger and least typical entries in the label's catalogue.

 

IRENE SCHWEIZER/RUDIGER CARL/PAUL LOVENS/RADU MALFATTI/HARRY MILLER: Ramifications

(OG 500)

 

Track listing: Elephant Off The Bone/What's Yours Then?/Panacea For -/Rüdiger's Tune Is Called 0202 Which Is The New Code For Wuppertal (Parts A & B)/FMP 

 

Irène Schweizer (piano), Rüdiger Carl (tenor sax), Paul Lovens (drums), Radu Malfatti (trombone), Harry Miller (bass).

 

Recorded live at the Kunsthaus Zürich, September 1973. Produced by Keith Beal. Cover design: Paul Taylor. Released 1975.

 

Ramifications is among the least Ogun-looking releases on the label. If anything it resembles an FMP release which perhaps went astray. Three of the participants were FMP regulars and here make their only appearance on Ogun. Even the final track is entitled "FMP." How come it's on Ogun, then?

 

Irène Schweizer's name is top of the bill because she organised this improvised grouping after receiving a commission to work with a visiting Danish dance company, who were due to take up a week's residency at the Kunsthaus Zürich art gallery in September 1973. But it was Harry Miller, who was busy setting up Ogun at the time, who offered to record and release the proceedings, or at least edited highlights from them. In most interviews of the period Miller expresses his wish that Ogun become a platform for international improvisers and not just British-based ones, so Ramifications can be viewed as an initial step in that direction.

 

However, the album received some terrible reviews at the time, mostly criticising what was felt to be an out-of-date all-guns-blazing hardcore free jazz freakout. I myself bought the record later in the seventies but didn't think that much of it. When I revisited Ogun for one of my blogs in the early 2000s my mind hadn't changed. But what are my feelings about it now, more than twenty years on?

 

I have to say that my feelings remained mixed. I do think Ramifications a better record than before but continue to have problems with it. The first thing to say is that the album does not present us with a single, continuous improvisation; these are separate moments from different parts of the group's week in residence, as you can hear from the between-track edits; presumably the "best bits." Each of the five musicians is allotted a composer credit for each track, for equality's sake - Schweizer, Malfatti, Miller, Carl and Lovens respectively.

 

It is Lovens who gets the proceedings going with a tapping 6/8 cowbell motif (albeit with a degree of pitch variance). Miller then enters, striking deep, decisive notes and setting up a modal drone with the drummer. The feeling is one of a farm awakening at dawn. Malfatti's trombone blearily snorts its way into consciousness while Lovens moves to full drumkit for some busier business. Then Schweizer enters, hammering repeated low-register notes, mixed with some interior string plucking. As the trombone reluctantly becomes more active, Carl comes in with typical Evan Parker-ish jagged splinters of notes.

 

Inevitably the playing intensifies and we do indeed end up with a loud FMP free blowout before everyone agrees on one collective high note, then recedes. Miller concentrates on a fierce plucked solo and Malfatti issues odd birdsong tweets before Miller switches to arco. Stuttering figures of uncertain origin are produced by Carl and Malfatti (the latter in places not sounding like a trombone, as such). Schweizer's piano then becomes more florid, Malfatti growls quite furiously (definitely an elephant off the bone). Lovens' cowbell now sounds like something from an old school police vehicle before his crashing drums induce a collective explosion, which then settles into the next piece (which to these ears seems to follow on naturally from the first).

 

Although "What's Yours Then?" is credited to Malfatti, it seems to be mostly a feature for Schweizer, with Miller, then Lovens, proving themselves to be a fairly effective trio. Malfatti does eventually reappear, as then does Carl, before both players agree on a relatively muted coda.

 

Miller reasonably begins his piece "Panacea For -" with a plucked solo. He is then joined by Carl and Lovens. Carl blows hard and Lovens' drums behind him are very forceful. Miller takes a second solo with Lovens rumbling, before both embark on an arco bass/percussion duet which sounds like an animated conversation between two knitting needles. The horns then re-enter the picture, with Carl's tenor murmuring and Malfatti practically cackling via his Tricky Sam Nanton plunger. There follows a collective coda which Lovens decisively brings to a full stop.

 

The album's setpiece is the (yes, Steve Lake, I agree with you here) very pretentiously-titled "Rüdiger's Tune Is Called 0202 Which Is The New Code For Wuppertal" (you know, Rüdi, you could just have called it "0202." We wouldn't have minded). It commences with a fine duet between Lovens' varipitched cymbals and Malfatti's multiphonic trombone. There follow ominous rumblings from arco bass and low-register piano, with Carl hollering a field call in the middle distance. It isn't long before the group launches into some more busy free activity, with Malfatti out front and Schweizer "comping."

 

Schweizer takes over for a solo in which she carefully negotiates a parameter of set harmonics; the influence of Cecil Taylor is quite evident. Carl makes a cautious entry on a low, nagging line of tenor notes. The "rhythm section" momentarily quietens down but all soon noisily builds up again for Carl's big "solo" - which to my ears remains a rather tired variant on the Pharoah Sanders-with-Michael Mantler tenor freakout sixties template. Malfatti's increasingly aggressive commentary is actually a lot more compelling, with unearthly voicings arising seemingly from nowhere (is that a faulty early warning siren or a motorcycle taking forever to rev up?). Lovens POUNDS his drums behind all of this before it comes to a sudden stop, with a vocal whoop of approval at the end.

 

Part B begins with minimalist percussion and a strange set of thuds (which I now realise may be attributable to the Danish dancers). Miller's arco bass wearily descends into proceedings while Malfatti operates what sounds like a white noise generator. Carl re-enters and gets all worked up again. Schweizer's solo in this section is VERY Taylorish, so much so that certain phrases from Taylor's solo in Mantler's "Communications #11 (Part One)" reappear practically unaltered; Lovens keenly plays the Andrew Cyrille role but Miller's deadpan bass keeps both players rooted. Still, even Schweizer has to resort to elbow-on-keys tactics at the piece's climax just to be heard.

 

Lovens' "FMP" begins with quiet, ethereal tones, possibly involving the use of wine glasses and sounding remarkably like the introduction to "Ghosts" by Japan. Miller's bass carefully polices the improvising and Malfatti is in his low register and relatively restrained. We hear distant whoops and thuds - the dancers again? Malfatti enjoys a chuckling solo with Schweizer backing him up. Carl follows and then piano and drums drop out, leaving Carl, Malfatti and Miller collectively sighing. However, there is yet another all-out free jazz screamathon with Lovens back in the picture before a final, frantic "unison passage" ends the record.

 

So, there is a lot of creativity and interaction going on in Ramifications. Schweizer is a lot more resourceful here than I initially thought (although there are numerous moments where her piano cannot be heard at all) and I remain convinced that a Malfatti/Miller/Lovens trio should have been convened (Lovens really is such a droll drummer at times). I am also aware that this record initiated a fruitful long-term musical partnership between Schweizer and Carl. But the latter continues to bother me; he tries to be both Brötzmann and Parker but, though obviously possessed of technique, to my ears lacks the power and real radicalism of either and is all too ready to fall back on old post-Aylerian sax clichés. That having been said, in today's relatively staid jazz climate, there is something of a frisson in hearing no-holds-barred free improvisation As It Used To Be in 2025. Ramifications would cause a stir if recorded and released now by some kids in New York or Berlin.

 

Current availability: it's never been reissued in any format - although Ogun tell me they're currently working on getting it reissued, at least digitally - but happily someone has uploaded the album onto YouTube.