Irene Schweizer

[AmirBagachelles]

I wanted to fork over from the Tchicai thread, I love the Willi the Pig set, lo-fi tragedy that it is. I have Irene Schweizer's duo set with Pierre Favre from 2002, and I would love to hear more. She dazzles me with many sustained and varied moods on both discs, obviously great technical skill and very concise. What else is out there to hear? The liner notes to the recent duo disc mention a long history as a free player. Did she record as a side player? thanks, Dan

Edited November 15, 2004 by AmirBagachelles

[J.A.W.]

Irène Schweizer discography on AMG.

[J.A.W.]

I can recommend the albums Schweizer recorded with Pierre Favre:

Irène Schweizer & Pierre Favre - Intakt CD 009

Ulrichsberg - Intakt CD 084

but I'm not convinced by her solo albums:

Many and One Direction - Intakt CD 044

Piano Solo, Vol.1 - Intakt CD 020

Piano Solo, Vol.2 - Intakt CD 021

[David Williams]

She's featured on the London Jazz Composers' Orchestra's Theoria, if you want to hear he in a 'free jazz piano concerto' setting. Very exciting.

[A Lark Ascending]

I saw Schweizer and Favre a year or so back at a festival. I went along out of curiosity, expecting something highbrow and severe. Instead I got a delightful concert with the sort of variety mentioned in the first post.

I've enjoyed this live solo disc subsequently:

She can be heard on two of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra discs:

(Sorry David. Overlapped post!)

Edited November 14, 2004 by Bev Stapleton

[J.A.W.]

I saw Schweizer and Favre a year or so back at a festival. I went along out of curiosity, expecting something highbrow and severe. Instead I got a delightful concert with the sort of variety mentioned in the first post.

I've enjoyed this live solo disc subsequently:

Forgot about that one. It is one of her better solo albums in my opinion.

[A Lark Ascending]

Please take this as a genuine enquiry, JAW.

The freer, more experimental end of jazz is an area I only visit occasionally. Generally it confuses me but I keep coming back, partly because I do find things I enjoy and partly just to push my own listening boundaries. A live experience of such music can also enthuse me where records might lose my attention.

I've heard little Schweizer beyond the discs I mentioned above.

I'm interested in what makes you feel the Chicago disc is better than her other solo discs. What is it about those recordings that qualifies your enthusiasm?

As I say, a genuine enquiry, not a challenge to your judgement.

[J.A.W.]

Please take this as a genuine enquiry, JAW.

The freer, more experimental end of jazz is an area I only visit occasionally. Generally it confuses me but I keep coming back, partly because I do find things I enjoy and partly just to push my own listening boundaries. A live experience of such music can also enthuse me where records might lose my attention.

I've heard little Schweizer beyond the discs I mentioned above.

I'm interested in what makes you feel the Chicago disc is better than her other solo discs. What is it about those recordings that qualifies your enthusiasm?

As I say, a genuine enquiry, not a challenge to your judgement.

I have a problem with the Schweizer solo albums mentioned in my earlier post because her playing sometimes sounds mannered to me in a way that's hard for me to describe. Her Chicago solo album is much more spontaneous to my ears.

In my opinion the first few lines of the review of the Piano Solo albums in the seventh edition of the Penguin Guide hit the nail on the head: "Schweizer is not a natural unaccompanied performer. The most communicative of players, she needs no one to play against, but she simply functions better in an environment where there is an element of interchange and reciprocity." The review is favorable, by the way.

Edited November 14, 2004 by J.A.W.

[A Lark Ascending]

Thanks, JAW.

[J.A.W.]

Here's an earlier Irène Schweizer thread.

[Nate Dorward]

Schweitzer's solo albums I've heard have been very good but yes they do tend to have a fairly small range of favourite devices & use them a lot--in particular the little singsong waltzes she likes to drop into. They're not as "outside" in many ways as her ensemble stuff: instead, they're often closer to Abdullah Ibrahim or Monk (there are a couple Monk exercises on vol. 2 of the Solo Piano series--a Monk tune & a standard that's virtually an exact transcription of how Monk used to play it). Schweitzer's also said in the past that she used to be a big Horace Silver fan & I can hear that in her playing too. She also obviously knows her Lennie Tristano (cf. "...endlich!" on vol.1).

[A Lark Ascending]

Thanks. That's very helpful. I can certainly hear that difference between her playing on the Chicago disc and Theoria.

Edited November 14, 2004 by Bev Stapleton

[king ubu]

Nice to see another thread dedicated to Schweizer (please, do correct the spelling in the title!). I still don't have any of her discs, except for the Chicago Piano Solo, which I love a lot (see the other thread).

Heard an hour-long programme on Swiss radio dedicated to Dollar Brand/Abdullah Ibrahim, with Schweizer being invited to present him in an interview with some radio guy. Pretty interesting to get first-hand information from her, as the Brand-influence is quite easily discernable from her playing, I'd say.

Schweizer performed this year's Willisau festival in trio with Hamid Drake and Fred Anderson. I only heard two cuts on the air, but I am looking forward to hopefully hearing more (in form of a radio broadcast on swiss radio).

ubu

[AmirBagachelles]

wow, now that sounds like a hot trio! Thanks for all the views, sorry about the spelling. Blame it on a brain malfunction and middle-aged blindness.

[king ubu]

wow, now that sounds like a hot trio! Thanks for all the views, sorry about the spelling. Blame it on a brain malfunction and middle-aged blindness.

No problem. The two cuts I heard are ok, but that's the kind of music you must have more to really judge... Drake played some various percussion instruments, it seems, before finally settling on drums. I hope they will broadcast this concert!

[AmirBagachelles]

I've gone searching for Crispell-Schweizer "Overlapping Hands" on FMP. Is it as good as its scarcity might imply?

[king ubu]

Let's bring this one back up!

I interviewed Schweizer a few months ago, both for a radio show celebrating 20 years of Intakt records, as well as for a portrait of Schweizer that my friend did on his own, then.

Wasn't that overwhelming an experience, but I guess it's simply a fact that not all musicians are able to put into words what they want to achieve in their playing... they might have turned into writers otherwise ;-)

Anyway, I picked up a few discs since this thread was up last time. Willi the Pig is indeed a very nice one, as has been said, and contrary to Hans and others I enjoyed the Piano Solo discs quite some. Vol. 1 I enjoyed more. Then there's Ulrichsberg, and that one may be my favourite disc of her, next to Chicago Piano Solo.

Also very good in my opinion is her latest solo effort, another concert, this time on a good piano, in a great hall (Jean Nouvels culture & congress centre in Lucerne, Switzerland), and professionally recorded (sort of opposite to the Chicago disc...):

She starts out freely improvising (#1 and #2), then goes into a great Standard, "Ballad of the Sad Café", some of her own tunes, and then some Monk, too (the CD includes only "Oska T.", but a live broadcast with much of the same material also included two more short Monk tunes, as well as Ornette's "Broadway Blues" which she performed as a 1.5 or 2 minute encore).

Highly recommended disc!

Then, the trio with Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake seems to have been released on Intakt, paired with some Schweizer/Drake duos from an earlier (1998) encounter... weird enough I cannot find any trace of it on the Intakt website - maybe it was withdrawn? Anyway, I heard both concerts on the radio and if the disc appears again, I'll pick it up!

Then there was a special "Portrait" release, together with the film about her (seems to be mediocre, but I haven't seen it). That one includes tracks from most (all?) her single Intakt discs, from the first to the latest. It also holds a thick book with Intakt discography of her, as well as some writings about her:

Definitely recommended to anyone not yet familiar with her, or only slightly familiar. (The film is also on Intakt, DVD 121)

*******************************

So I wonder: does anyone here happen to know why the Schweizer/Anderson/Drake disc disappeared? Thinkign of it, I don't think I ever saw it in a store, but I definitely saw it on the website (including an ugly cover scan whcih I posted on this board, probably in the funny rat, but I assume if it's been taken down it won't show any longer...)

[relyles]

I have heard several radio broadcasts featuring Schweizer and they made enough of an impression on me to want to investigate her music in more depth. Coindidentally I had printed out the page from the Intakt website regarding the recent solo disc as a reminder to purchase it sometime soon. Nice to read an enthusiatic recommendation to help ease any doubts. Thanks Ubu.

[king ubu]

Ronald the trio with Anderson/Drake was to be the same concert I spread around... and I also spread the duo with Drake, parts of whcih were to be used as filler material, since the trio set was obviously as short as what I spread back then (48 minutes or so).

I wasn't the only person being enthused by the Lucerne set - even a friend of mine who usually takes Schweizer for granted and doesn't like her a lot was fascinated. And the reviewers of some daily papers liked it a lot, too!

[king ubu]

I forgot to mention the CD release of this, one of the very first Intakt recordings (I think it was originally a radio recording, as was the case with Schweizer/Anderson/Drake and the Lucerne set):

Irène Schweizer: Piano

George Lewis: Trombone

Maggie Nicols: Voice

Joëlle Léandre: Bass

Günter Sommer: Drums

Paul Lovens: Drums

1. FIRST MEETING 10’14

Irène Schweizer: Piano

George Lewis: Trombone

2. LUNGS AND LEGS WILLING? 12’04

Irène Schweizer: Piano

Maggie Nicols: Voice

Günter Sommer: Drums

3. TRUTZNACHTIGALL 20’30

Irène Schweizer: Piano

Joëlle Léandre: Bass

Paul Lovens: Drums

4. EVERY NOW AND THEN 1’21

Maggie Nicols: Voice

Lindsay Cooper: Piano

Recorded live at Taktlos 1984 by Peter Pfister

Grafic Design: Ruedi Wyss

Photos: Gertrud Vogler, Leonhard Mühlheim

Liner Notes: Patrik Landolt

Executive Production: Patrik Landolt

First released as Intakt LP 001 / 1986

Intakt CD 001/ 2005

blurb from website:

At the first Taktlos Festival in 1984, Irène Schweizer assembled several chosen musician to a three-day improvisation meeting. The recordings, which appeared in 1986 as the first Intakt LPs, reveal the improvisational art of the pianist in three different formations: Schweizer and Lewis / Schweizer, Nicols and Sommer / Schweizer, Léandre and Lovens. Twenty years after their initial release, these improvisations haven’t lost any of their playful inventiveness, liveliness, power and originality. “A city tour through musical liberated zones” was what Zurich press wrote after the festival. In addition, the record is a cultural-political document of the atmosphere of awakening in Zurich in the eighties; moreover, it marks the beginning of the jazz label, Intakt Records, as well as that of the Taktlos Festival.

I haven't heard it, but I guess it should at least be interesting!

I also just found in a sale the Diaboliques (Schweizer, Joelle Leandre & Maggie Nicols) "Live at Rhinefalls" disc - haven't played it yet, though.

[Nate Dorward]

The Live at Taktlos is well worth getting--some terrific music on there.

[Rabshakeh]

I've been on a bit of a Schweizer run in the last couple of days. 

Back in the late 80s / early 90s she did a terrific run of duo albums on Intakt where she paired with many of the great drummers from the European (and in a few cases US) jazz and improv scenes. A couple of them are mentioned in the above thread.

It was a good concept and I like these albums a lot: each of them shows a different side of Schweizer's personality, and her ability to read and respond to a partner. The bright cover images give them a sort of penny candy / pick 'n' mix feel, too. 

In the spirit of making a rainy Wednesday afternoon pass quicker, I wondered if anyone on here has a favourite partnership from among those Intakt duets, and why they like that one particularly? 

Edited August 19, 2020 by Rabshakeh

[clifford_thornton]

Ah -- I really need to dig these out again, as it's been many years (they're in storage like most of my CDs). The duos with Moholo, Sommer, and Cyrille stood out the most to me at the time. I recall being less into the one with Bennink. I should revisit the duo with Favre; they did another duo CD called Ulrichsberg somewhat later that's quite nice, as well as trio and quartet dates in the '60s that are wonderfully heavy.

Too bad she and Mani Neumeier didn't link up again for some duets (at least not that I know of)...

[colinmce]

I personally like the Sommer one best. I like the first one with Bennink (haven’t heard the more recent one), but that is a ymmv situation. 

I need to pull out that Taktlos set soon. Great varied program, but the trio with Léandre & Lovens is one of the all-time great ripping chunks of free improv. 

[Clunky]

Of the duos , the only one i know is the Sommer one which i recall liking (not played it in a while). I recently picked up the FMP reissue of Santana  (rec. 1968) with Favre and Kowald. Very enjoyable set with a clear debt to Cecil Taylor.