Manfred Schoof Quintet - Resonance (2009)

Resonance compiles two discs of vital material from the early JAPO releases by German trumpeter Manfred Schoof: Scales, Light Lines, and Horizons. The first two albums are presented in full, while only half of the third is excerpted. As co-member with bass clarinetist Michel Pilz of the Globe Unity Orchestra (another group with a hefty JAPO footprint), Schoof was a hot ticket in the 1970s, when his quintet was all the rage in the European free jazz scene.
What distinguished him from the avant-garde demimonde was an insistence on melodic integrity. For Schoof, “the term ‘free’ not only stands for a specific style of jazz that, in its beginnings, opposed with revolutionary gesture everything redolent of the past and reminiscent of tradition but rather the freedom to choose between a multitude of very different means of expression. Tradition, therefore, is viewed as a past experience that merges with and enriches a new style of sound.” His band mates in these recordings include Pilz, pianists Jasper van ‘t Hof and Rainer Brüninghaus, bassist Günter Lenz, and drummer Ralf-R. Hübner, most of whom will be familiar to the more adventurous ECM listeners.