CD - Barbara Thompson's Paraphernalia - Never Say Goodbye

1CD - Import

In the aesthetic sense, Barbara Thompson was never a revolutionary. She didn't develop any new style, attitude or concept. But that was so never her intention. She was more concerned with breaking up the „men-amongst-themselves" mood and to draw her audience more deeply into her music than was usual in the eccentric Jazz of the 70s. Her trademark was gripping, inviting, but not compromising Jazz Rock.

She ridded her Jazz of all reservations. Her unflinching openness made it all the easier for her to integrate all imaginable genres into her music, whether Classical, Pop or World Music, and to move light-footedly between the various contradictory schools and epochs of Jazz, without ever having to resort to programmatic thinking or logos. In that she brought that together, which was excluded elsewhere, she completed & refined on the ideas of her more experimental contemporaries.

But in contrast to many of her male colleagues, Barbara Thompson found acceptance where Jazz normally didn't have a chance. She broke with the American pattern early. She didn't necessarily explore new terrain in European Jazz, but she did give it a new face, from which it still profits today. From the very beginning, she cultivated a language which promised to be timeless & which could adopt the most diverse styles without distorting them. As such her compositions, ornamental, rich in arabesques & in which the not at all soft sound of the saxophone remains organic and leads back into the ensemble, have not lost their hypnotic fire. "

The album features two well known standards written by my favourite jazz artists, John Coltrane & Benny Golson. The arrangements were great fun, especially 'Giant Steps' with Jon's driving drums leading the way. 'Living in the Fast Lane' was originally composed as a three movement concerto for big band. It has been broadcast by different ensembles several times since & I couldn't resist taking one step further, and with the help of Pete Lemer, re-arranging it"