Günter Baby Sommer & Raymond MacDonald - Sounds, Songs & Other Noises (2022)

Gunter Baby Sommer, born in Dresden, is one of the pioneers of European Free Jazz.

In a prolific career spanning over 50 years he has developed a unique approach to percussion and a captivating highly personalized style that has taken him around the world, collaborating widely and delighting audiences with charm and virtuosity. He has also developed and made his own exceptional instruments and has an unmistakable soundworld that marks him out as a master and a true living legend of percussion.

Raymond MacDonald is a saxophonist and composer with an extensive career in music, cross-disciplinary arts and academia. Much of his work explores the boundaries and ambiguities between what is conventionally seen as improvisation and composition. As a saxophonist and composer, MacDonald has released over 60 CDs, toured and broadcast worldwide and has composed music for film, television, theatre, radio and art installations.

The result of their collaboration can be heard on their new CD “Sounds, Songs and some other Noises”. Joyous and celebratory, this CD captures two artists at the top of their game exploring new landscapes with mesmerising ideas, drawing listeners into their unique and engaging world of sound. At times fragile and delicate and at others boisterous and freewheeling, they explore their sounds and songs with a telepathic understanding of old friends sharing good times. Carving a new set of beguiling pieces brimming with warmth and excitement, Sommer’s endlessly inventive rhythms dance and weave to create wondrous percussive stories, while the saxophone searches, sometimes soaring and weeping and sometimes probing with tiny subtle sparkling textures. Jointly they create an improvised magnetic charm that is inviting, irresistible and fun. Breezy melodies and roller-coaster improvisations merge in a thrilling adventure bathing the audience in new and glorious sounds.

About the Duo:

“Leading contemporary jazz” – The Guardian

“Music this articulate is rare in any style of music” – Jazz Wise

“Quite astonishingly brilliant” – Jazz Wise

“An unqualified success” – The Wire

“Able to individuate the exact points in which bedlam and presence of mind fuse, allowing the music to reach levels of unexpected intensity enriched by beautifully resonant halos and deliberate melodic reflections.” – Touching Extremes

“like mid-period Ayler hiking in the highlands … Probably the hippest ‘jazz’ release of the month.” – Jazz Wise

“The interaction between these two stellar musicians grab the listener’s attention from the start until the very end : intensity, surprise, beauty and creative collisions” – All About Jazz