Liner note writers are, I suppose, expected to claim that the music they are commenting on is of supreme importance, of exceptional artistic rank, in short: nothing less than a masterpiece which you, the customer, would do better not to miss. Well, I will do just that in the ensuing lines, but I will go one step further, I will try to substantiate my claim.

John Martin Tchicai, born in 1936, musician of Congolese-Danish lineage, member of the first generation of Free Jazz players in the Sixties, has been insufficiently recorded as a leader - a situation aggravated by the fact that some of those few recording s under his own name have been issued by rather obscure labels. The more easily obtainable albums of recent years generally show him as a featured sideman either in combo settings (e.g. in the group of his long-time friend, the South African bassist John ny Dyani), in a big band context (with Pierre Dorges "New Jungle Orchestra") or as a member of all-saxophone-ensembles ("De Zes Winden"), a co-operative Dutch/Danish/Canadian effort). While these recordings have always managed to capture some of the many facets of John's musicality, they have hardly ever documented the full range of his artistic potential. This album, however, does exactly that, and that makes it my favourite Tchicai record to date.

For one thing, it features his talent as an improviser and as a composer. Listen to " Mushi Miyake", "Exercise 15" and "The Struggle with the 7th", and you will understand why I rate John among the finest composers in contemporary jazz. The themes -all of which were, by the way, composed during a trip to Japan in May 1983- are melodically rich, rhythmically inventive (note the frequent changes of meter and tempo) and shun the formal or harmonic cliches that even today's jazz writers seem to find so hard t o avoid. And so it is hardly surprising that these compositions stimulate improvisations which are as unconventional and challenging as the angular lines John is so fond of in his writing.

Which leads us to John Martin Tchicai, the improviser - an improviser of astounding versatility, equally well versed in tackling standard song structures as in free improvisation, in group playing as in the art of the solo. Three of the album's nine track s - which were recorded not long after John had switched to tenor saxophone after more than thirty years of alto playing - are alto solos: investigations into timbre and intervallic qualities of a subtlety more commonly associated with some well-known ree d instrumentalist from the AACM school. "I wanted the alto sound for those pieces. When I'm alone, there is more room for explorations, more quietness", says John and goes on to explain that the two "homages" were improvised while looking at a particular work of surrealist painter Yves Tanguy (whose wife's first name was Kay). John plays tenor on the six quartet tracks, and while the rich tenor sound adds additional weight to his lines, there is an undeniable common denominator to all nine titles, a facto r which constitutes the most intriguing and personal quality of John's playing on whatever instrument: his incredible ability to shape and vary the sound of his horn, ranging from minute timbre variations ("Homage a Tanguy") via tender ballad lushness ("St ella by Starlight") to the powerful dramatic gestures of "Mothers". "Mothers", incidentally, seems a very appropriate choice for Tchicai: never has his stylistic link to Albert Ayler - another master of sound - been more obvious than now that he is playin g Ayler's main instrument: the tenor saxophone. John's interpretation of the tune - less melancholy, more dynamic than Ayler's original 1964 recording - is a beautiful tribute to (quote John) "one of the few originals in the new music", whom he had met in 1962, during Ayler's sojourn in Copenhagen.

The instrumentation of the quartet could be seen as another -albeit unconscious- bow to tradition: to the tradition of the "new Thing"in particular. The saxophone-plus-drums-plus-two-basses-format has, to my knowledge, rarely been used since Ornette Colem an's recordings of the late sixties (featuring virtuoso bassists David Izenzon and Charlie Haden). John, however, was not thinking of this precedentwhen he assembled the group for this recording: "I just wanted to have the strong sound of two basses", he points out - and, as you will note, he certainly got what he wanted. Thomas Durst and Christian Kuntnter, two young Swiss bass players, complement each other beautifully: they build dense textures in free passages, they reinforce each other's lines in oct aves or unison, they freely switch the roles of soloist and accompanist whenever appropriate. Timo Fleig, an exceptionally inventive and sensitive drummer who definitely deserves the attribute "melodic", completes the quartet, which was a result of John's workshop activities in Zurich in 1983. The group was, however, short-lived, and so we are all the more fortunate to have this document of its ability and its potential. Timo Fleig's untimely death in 1985 terminated an artistic cooperation which gave bi rth to, to my ears, one of the most stimulating small group recordings of the eighties - which, as I hope to have shown, is more than an empty claim.

Peter Niklas Wilson