John Tchicai and Cadentia Nova Danica - Afrodisiaca
Danish musician John Tchicai is an alto and soprano sax player who has been involved with a number of important out jazzers such as John Coltrane (Ascension), Don Cherry and Archie Shepp and still appears to this day on various projects such as Henry Kaiser’s Yo Miles tributes (he’s also taught music at my local college in Sacramento). After Tchicai’s stint in New York playing with the luminaries of the free jazz scene, he moved back home in the late 60s and formed Candentia Nova Danica with whom he recorded Afrodisiaca with a cast of 25 other musicians.
Unlike many of the recent MPS albums I’ve covered, many of which are jazzrock or at least edgy, electric jazz, Afrodisiaca is somewhere between free jazz and composed material, with the title track a side-long piece written by Hugh Steinmetz, who also plays trumpet. While much of the music is written (apparently in the scale of the African percussion instrument the balafon), the solo spots and general chemistry are very reminiscent of free jazz, with a wide musical palette incorporating dissonant free-jazz inspired solos into the music’s framework.
The result is one of MPS’s most difficult and challenging albums and one that could possibly be described as “third stream” in the manner of combining European classical tradition with American jazz. Where side 1 slowly builds to quite the climax, the second side with compositions (or arrangements) by Tchicai himself open the floodgates entirely. “Heavenly Love on a Planet” could be Tchicai’s ode to Sun Ra, slow percussion sets up solos for both he and William Breuker, wildly free and dissonant, while the slow tempo set up by the percussionists creates quite a bit of tension. Pierre Doerge’s guitar gets a bit of play on “Fodringsmontage” which plays like a collage of Albert Ayler, Sonny Sharrock and Ascension, all of the freedom wrapped up in some beautiful, eerie ensemble work.
The final two pieces are probably the work’s most consonant pieces and I still hear, even through such a European approach, a lot of Americana in the melodic themes, always reminiscent of Albert Ayler to my ears, the way he’d swirl chaos and anger around the familiar. Harry Akst’s “This is Heaven” is almost like a march, slightly mournful and delirious, and surprisingly tuneful. “Lakshmi” seems to follow right on out, before breaking into a growingly accompanied Michael Shou flute solo and disappearing into mystery, with the ensemble floating up strange chords and returning in between Willy Jagert’s ophicleide and Christian Khyl’s soprano-saxophone like a narrator. The finale is quite meditative in the end thanks to these solos, as if the bursts of chaos and return to ensemble themes were returning one slowly to the center.
It’s not a surprise that this is a highly lauded free work, given that the ensemble work acts as the glue that holds together all the abandon and experimentation so well. It’ll sit comfortably if not edgily next to one’s Art Ensemble of Chicago, Brotzmann and early ECM albums as a prime example of a truly syncretic and avant garde work that ran with the multiculturalism of the late 60s and created something new and lasting from it.