Ulrich Gumpert & Günter Baby Sommer - La Paloma (2012)

Ulrich Gumpert and Günter Baby Sommer with their second duo-release on Intakt Records: "La Paloma" strikes a wide arco: blues, boogie-woogie, hard bop, arrangements of German folk songs, free jazz – it's all there. Günter Sommer's "drum fills" show clearly why he got his nickname from Louis Armstrong's drummer Baby Dodds, while a piece like "Preußische Elegie" ("Prussian Elegy", the title itself, a contradiction) demonstrates what a great composer Ulrich Gumpert actually is. The CD was recorded in the MPS-Studio in Villingen in the Black Forest, where they have a mighty "Bösendorfer Imperial". Oscar Peterson, Red Garland, Hampton Hawes and Roland Hanna have recorded on it – which makes it a sacred instrument. The album ends with "La Paloma". This longing melody is celebrated in a serious and distinguished manner, with great authority, confident and detached. And furnished with a small distancing effect added: two beats rest before each verse almost seems like an ironic twinkle in the eye.

Ulrich Gumpert: piano
Günter Baby Sommer: drums, percussion