Michael Naura Quintet: European Jazz Sounds (1963)

Naura's quintet plays the kind of sophisticated hard bop labels like Blue Note where famous for. The three cover versions give you a good idea of where the album is heading, with tracks by Oliver Nelson, Tubby Hayes and Jackie McLean.

These were some of the best jazzmen in Germany. Peter Reinke is a fine alto player even if he may use a few too many blues clichés. Vibesman Wolfgang Schlüter is the one that really steals the show. His playing is astonishingly resourceful and constantly surprising. He had already been a member of earlier incarnations of Naura's quintet and would be featured on later albums by the leader, too. Schlüter recorded very little under his own name, though, and seemed to have spent most of his time playing in bigbands. Drummer Joe Nay is a monster. Just check the sample track down below. Michael Naura is not only an excellent pianist, but judging from the three original pieces included here, also a very fine composer.

There's two earlier EPs by a slightly different manned Michael Naura Quintet (available at the Boogieman's place). The group with Reinke and Nay would only record this sole album, though, since Naura was forced to end his active jazz live due to illness in 1964. He would concentrate on journalism in later years and only occasionally enter a studio.


I really love this classic album from my heimat and was more than happy to get my hands on this vinyl re-issue, although the legality of this issue is questionable. There are indeed good reasons to assume that this is a counterfeit. But original copies are sold for absurd amounts and the sound of this re-issue is fine, so i won't complain.

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Here's an abridged version of the excellent liner notes by Siegfried Schmidt-Joos:
... Here are five musicians who play modern jazz ... simply, directly, without hesitation, without speculating on the snob appeal of avant-gardism, without making concessions to any sort of evanescent musical fashion, without hiding their enthusiasm at playing behind some jumped up philosophy or other.

The six titles on this record are all typical of the Quintet's repertoire; above all blues (Three Seconds, Dr. Jekyll, Stratosphere) and ballads (Night Flower. Gruga Mood). It begins with a composition by Oliver Nelson, in whose music the same bond between modern and traditional motifs is evident as in Michael Naura's. "Three Seconds" is called so because it's theme, a simple blues motif, is built of three second intervals.

"Night Flower", by Michael Naura. is one of the most beautiful jazz ballads ever composed in Germany. In the B-part only the harmonies are laid down so that Wolfgang Schlüter literally plays his own middle part, varying it from performance to performance. The typical Naura sound is also introduced here: lyrical alto sax lines backed by cadenced, floating piano and vibraphone chords.

The brisk Jackie McLean theme, "Dr. Jekyll", turns out quite naturally to be an alto sax highlight. Peter Reinke achieves here a sparkling, dramatic solo, followed by Schlüter's vibraphone artistry with its contrasting ideas leapfrogging one another and crackling like fireworks.

With "Down in the Village", Tubby Hayes' homage to Greenwich Village, Joe Nay gives us an exhibition piece of modern drum accompaniment. Cuban patterns, rolls and dabs weave circles round the solo instruments; the influence of Kenny Clarke is not to be denied. Nay got to know him in Paris, where he played together with Bud Powell. Stan Getz and Chet Baker, among others.

"Gruga Mood" was written specially for the Essen Jazz Festival of 1960 which took place in the Gruga Hall. But the accent is really on mood, and Wolfgang Schlüter's knitting together of space and perspective into shimmering, almost static tones is masterly.

And finally "Stratosphere" - a blues, seemingly put together from riffs, the main theme of which is introduced by the piano. Michael Naura's piano style, based on economy and asceticism, is beautifully demonstrated here. And 27-year-old Wolfgang Luschert sees to it that his walking bass keeps up a continuously rhythmical pulse, following Duke Ellington's motto that "it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing".

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Michael Naura Quintet: European Jazz Sounds
Brunswick 267912, Germany, 1963

A1 Three Seconds (Oliver Nelson)
A2 Night Flower (Naura)
A3 DR . Jekyll (Jackie McLean)

B1 Down In The Village (Tubby Hayes)
B2 Gruga Mood (Naura)
B3 Stratosphere (Naura)

Alto Saxophone – Peter Reinke
Bass – Wolfgang Luschert
Drums – Joe Nay
Piano – Michael Naura
Vibraphone – Wolfgang Schlüter