United Jazz + Rock Ensemble - Gone with the Weed
I almost forgot to put this up, but I remembered at the last moment.
Actually we have two guys born on consecutive days, both from the same part of the world and known for making a similar kind of noise.
I meant to post this one on its anniversary in July, but it totally slipped my mind back then as well.
All good, as soon as I discovered these cats were born 24 hours apart, 90 years ago now.
First we have Wolfgang Dauner, born this day in 1935.
Originally a trumpeter, he switched to keyboards in the 1960s. This proved prescient, and soon he was leading his own Free Jazz ensemble.
Soon, elements of the Rock music then assuming control of the world began to surface in his music.
At the start of the 1970s, he went full Fusion before there really was such a thing, founding a band part free, part funk and part what would come to be called World music.
That group was called Et Cetera -- not to be confused with the Prog band of the same name that came later -- and it became hugely influential from just the couple of albums they made.
He then made a couple of ridiculously banging solo records that hip-hoppers still bite from today, before founding the band we have in the Share folder.
I'm not sure how he got all these superstar people to be in it, but the United Jazz + Rock Ensemble (UJRE for short) contained enough European Jazz-Rock luminaries to fill a firmament.
He passed in 2020 after a long career organizing his particular brand of musical mayhem, but he'd have been 90 today, so in his eternal honor here comes some prime audiofootage of the UJRE in action.
The United Jazz + Rock Ensemble
Festival de Jazz d'Antibes
Juan-les-Pins, France
7.21.1978
01 Gone with the Weed
02 The Love that Cannot Speak its Name
03 Circus Gambet
04 Steps of M.C. Escher
05 Bebop Rock
06 South Indian Line
07 Stumbling Harry's Divorce March
Total time: 1:03:48
Ack van Rooyen - trumpet
Ian Carr - trumpet
Albert Mangelsdorff - trombone
Charlie Mariano - alto & soprano saxophones and nadaswaram
Barbara Thompson - tenor & alto saxophones and flute
Wolfgang Dauner - piano & synthesizer
Volker Kriegel - guitar
Eberhard Weber - bass
Jon Hiseman - drums
FM announcer is Andre Francis
Jazzrita's 16/48k digital capture of a recent INA rebroadcast stream
spectral analysis is lossless past 22 kHz, making this equivalent to a preFM source
converted to 16/44 CD Audio, edited, retracked & remastered by EN, July 2025
406 MB FLAC/direct link
406 MB FLAC/direct link
We'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail -- or 24 hours, whichever happens first -- with the 2nd of these 90th b'day celebrations.
But let's stay in the moment of now, and pay tribute to this seminal composer, piano player and bandleader with this 63 minutes of fire from one of his greatest ensembles!--J.
12.30.1935 - 1.10.2020