Fabian Dudek & La Campagne - Protecting A Picture That's Fading (2023) Hi Res

In the past four years, Fabian Dudek has received a lot of attention, especially with his quartet (with Felix Hauptmann, Fabian Arends, David Helm). Their debut in 2019 and the subsequent tour met with an enthusiastic response. The FAZ described Dudek as a “real high-flyer of contemporary jazz”. Last year's second album from the band, Isolated Flowers, received even more praise. Jazz Podium found: “This gripping music approaches its themes in ever new twists and turns and doesn't stop at random: captivating, entertaining and unexpectedly powerful. Great!”, the magazine Jazzthetik highlighted “the desire to set off […] and playing with complex rhythms” as well as Dudek’s “harsh expressivity”, and the Frankfurter Rundschau summed up that Dudek “...with his stubborn view of free jazz “There is an impressively skilful balance between […] energetically pointed playing styles and a formally mastered sound language.”

His new work has now been recorded with the formation La Campagne, which was founded around 2 ½ years ago. However, five of the six young musicians have known each other for a long time, partly from studying at the Cologne University of Music and Dance. The French classical flautist Pauline Turrillo joined via trumpeter Berthold Brauer. “Through Pauline we got an engagement at a festival in Grasse, where we played every day, not only on different stages, but also on the streets,” remembers Dudek of the band’s first, highly motivating quintet phase. The far-reaching live blockade triggered by Corona channeled the ensemble's energies in other directions. “I really wanted to create something new,” says Dudek, summing up his urgency at the time, “and at first I had no idea what it would be like to work with four jazz players and a classically trained musician. This connection appealed to me and I started composing.”

In fact, the unusual constellation turned out to be particularly inspiring, for example “in terms of the precision in the tonality and a generally sharpened sensitivity,” explains Dudek. “Initially I asked myself what music I could write that bore my signature, corresponded to my feelings and at the same time didn’t overwhelm the flute.” Such concerns soon turned out to be unfounded. From the end of 2020 to August 2022, the ensemble met again and again for intensive rehearsal phases in different locations in order to fill Dudek's given framework with a common image. “This resulted in some aspects that are rather atypical for me, but that I still value very much,” says Dudek. His compositions became the basis for collective developments, a kind of catalyst for everyone involved to contribute their own thoughts. “During the recordings, new things were always happening from take to take,” says Dudek, “we only got to this special point through the many rehearsals. We play with the material and break down the rules in the process; these are personal and communal processes." In this context, he also highlights the moment when Pauline Turrillo also began to improvise, which is unusual in much of classical music: "She did “The band has come a long way.”

One of the more unusual facets is certainly that the band leader only becomes audible with his alto saxophone after around a quarter of an hour, in the second half of the second piece. “I have fun listening to the others play my music,” says Dudek cheerfully. “For me it’s about what’s good for the music, not about my ego as an instrumentalist.”

After the rather impressionistic “She Took Me Hear The Birds Sing” with spots on flute and trumpet, partly bowed bass and piano, Turrillo’s subtle a cappella motifs at the beginning of “Oddballs” continue the calm mood. A drum solo by Parzhuber that is almost reminiscent of Far Eastern rituals marks the turning point; Immediately afterwards he falls into a staggered groove, Turrillo, Kintopf and Brauer switch to a jazz gesture. At the beginning, Hauptmann underlines the action with organ-like synthesizer sounds, later he communicates with the band on the piano, especially with Brauer's at times leading, tonally variable trumpet, whose solo is inspired by increasing drum vehemence. After a good eight minutes, Dudek's distinctive, roughened saxophone starts, now he is “talking” to Hauptmann. And then suddenly, in harsh contrast to the aesthetics that had predominated up to that point, an energetic outburst to squeaking heights is celebrated. The band then creates a kind of restart of the still ongoing piece, with a new arc of suspense, a rousing groove and additional timbres of a melodica.