Jerzy Milian - Cutting (2020)

Jerzy Milian

Jerzy Milian - vibraphone
Rundfunk-Tanzorchester Berlin

Cutting

GAD 123

By Adam Baruch

This is the ninth installment of the archival series released by GAD Records, which presents the work of Polish Jazz vibraphonist / composer / bandleader Jerzy Milian. This chapter is dedicated to Milian's recordings from 1970s, done in East Berlin (then DDR) with the Rundfunk Tanzorchester Berlin, conducted by Gunter Gollasch, which included the best East German musicians, such as saxophonist Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, trumpeter Joachim Grasswurm, trombonist Hubert Katzenbeisser, saxophonist/clarinetist Werner Schmidt, pianist Horst Pawliczak, bassist Klaus Koch, drummer Wolfgang Winkler and others. The orchestra performs sixteen compositions by Milian, also arranged by him.

The music is typical orchestral Jazz, based on the wonderful compositions and brilliant arrangements by Milian, which offer a mixture of relatively easier pieces with some Funk, Swing and even Big Beat inclinations, but also more advanced ones bordering on Anat-Garde, altogether a wonderful example of modern European Jazz, reflecting Milian's fascination with the Third Stream idiom. These orchestral pieces are obviously more "well behaved" in comparison to the music Milian composed for small combos, but still complex enough to rise a brow fifty years later. The orchestra included many excellent instrumentalists (Petrowsky among them), who performed the difficult music without a hitch, and therefore the result is still awe inspiring

Milian's compositions are absolutely brilliant and remain completely valid, often sounding as if composed today. Sophisticated, elegant, clever and beautifully structured, this music is alive and kicking as it was at the time it was created. Overall this is an incredible piece of Polish/European Jazz history, which absolutely deserves to be heard and studied. With Milian's passing it is even more important to document his work and bring it to the public. For orchestral Jazz and East European Jazz enthusiasts this album and all the albums released in this archival series are an absolute must!