Die Liebe wird siegen (love will prevail) celebrates the love of younger Austrian free improvisers – reeds player Clemens Salesny (a co-founder of JazzWerkstatt Wien) and drummer-percussionist Niki Dolp to local legend, veteran and pioneer free jazz composer-improvisers-guitarist-viola da gamba player-pianist Karl Wilhelm Krbavac, who has recorded in the last fifty years 6,500 notated compositions, played blues, twelve-tone music and early music, mastered the double bass, piano, harpsichord and cello, and became the world’s first free-jazz gambist. Krbavac was a member of the influential Viennese avant-garde The Reform Art Unit and the Reform Art Orchestra that hosted Dolp in its recent albums.
Salesny and Dolp enlisted the radical Krbavac for another free improvising orgy, composed simultaneously by all three musicians, with the premise that nothing is unthinkable and everything is imaginable, and with complete freedom to do whatever each musician wants at any given time. The trio rehearsed only once and only for fifteen minutes before its debut performance at the JazzWerkstatt Festival in 2021, and recorded Die Liebe wird siegen at the Viennese Progy & Bess club in March 2022 and added a few studio pieces. Out of 28 improvisations, 13 made it to the album. Dolp has provided these pieces with cryptic titles, hoping that one day they may be deciphered.
The first seven pieces feature the core trio of Krbavac, Salesny and Dolp playing intense and urgent, chaotic and sometimes soulful and even manic improvisations. These pieces highlight the deep trust and understanding of these gifted and uncompromising musicians as well as the way the trio juggles with an arsenal of string, reeds and percussive instruments- a few are outside the comfort zone of Salesny and Dolp such as the crackle box, gong and piano. The trio moves freely between free jazz, noise, chamber, contemporary music and electronica while solidifying their tsunami-like, out-of-the-box dynamics, embracing risk-taking and danger but also sharp irony and humor. The other six pieces integrate into the trio’s matrix local, like-minded guests – vibes player Woody Schabata, harpist Sara Kowal and bassists Raphael Preuschl and Lukas Kranzelbinder (Dolp plays in the latter Shake Stew). These guests spice the eclectic, psychedelic dynamics with softer, gentle touches, but still faithful to the subversive, genre-bending aesthetics of Krbavac, Salesny and Dolp.
Eyal Hareuveni
Karl Wilhelm Krbavac (viola da gamba, el.g, p); Clemens Salesny (as, ts, bcl, cl, crackle box, gong, flexaton), Niki Dolp (dr, kabalonga, ching cymbals, p, kalimba), Woody Schabata (vib), Sara Kowal (harp), Raphael Preuschl (el.b), Lukas Kranzelbinder (el.b)
