Vienna Art Orchestra: The Big Band Years (1993-2007) auf 4 CDs

The Vienna Art Orchestra is steeped in history and stories. Musical history. Jazz history. Big band history. For a start, its development spans 33 years and is documented through over 50 records and CDs, dozens of books (including one about secret societies in Austria), a movie film, TV productions, numerous Tour Diaries, and umpteen-thousand press clippings. The vinyl beginning and (with this compilation) CD ending of this history was marked by the now legendary “Tango From Obango,” the “orchestra’s evergreen tune” (Der Standard / A).

Nostalgia was certainly unplanned for: On this August evening of 2010, a few fine, fat big-band sounds with a really good beat were enough and any attentive observer soon came to realize the touching truth of how easily fans, fellow travelers, musicians, and even critics could be moved to tears. They had embarked on a sentimental journey down memory lane during the “Game Over” party for the Vienna Art Orchestra (VAO) that Mathias Rüegg had staged at the “Porgy & Bess” (which he founded), a jazz club and former erotic movie theater in central Vienna; which, of course, also meant: This was the band’s home base.

Mathias Rüegg, after months of painful inner struggle, had made the decision to disband the orchestra. It was a highly mature (in the sense of matured), unhysterical and pragma¬tic step to take, something rather rare in the cultural sector. The ensemble performed its last concert on July 9, 2010, at Viktring Abbey’s Musikforum in Carinthia. The following day, Mathias Rüegg announced the end of the ensemble on the orchestra’s homepage. The reasons he cited for his decision — while making perfectly clear that he was not playing the blame game — were “chronic under-financing, a major decrease in demand, as well the scaled down activities of event organizers and sponsors due to the economic crisis.”

The Vienna Art Orchestra is steeped in history and stories. Musical history. Jazz history. Big band history. For a start, its development spans 33 years and is documented through over 50 records and CDs, dozens of books (including one about secret societies in Austria), a movie film, TV productions, numerous Tour Diaries, and umpteen-thousand press clippings. The vinyl beginning and (with this compilation) CD ending of this history was marked by the now legendary “Tango From Obango,” the “orchestra’s evergreen tune” (Der Standard / A).

In-between these two versions lies a rich succession of metamorphoses, which began with the “Premier Orchestre d’ Art de Vienne’s” 1977 performance at a venue run by “Jazz Gitti” and ”Jessas na,” the first record of an avantgarde anarcho troupe. It continued with the “Wiener Art Orchesters” fusion into a homogenous, sublime conceptual orchestra and the final international breakthrough of the award-winning “Vienna Art Orchestra” of the late 1990s. It now ranked as “one of the best big bands in the world” (Der Tagesanzeiger / CH). Having reached the end of its classical big band phase in 2008, somewhere in 2009 it reinvented itself for the last time as a chamber music ensemble with a new sound. It was ahead of its time in the sense that rüegg’s “3rd Dream” created, as it were, in the now and truthfully, the beauty and fascination of a musical image that is impossible in theory and improbable in waking reality.

The good news is: History, as we know, is a living thing. It is part of the cultural production of a society. rüegg never was a soloist, never a solitary person; rather, he was always (in) company, albeit at a distance from the high-society set. As Peter Rüedi (Weltwoche) wrote, he “never played an instrument, but an orchestra.” Ultimately, one of the reasons why the cultural history of the VAO is such an original, good, and lively one is that the orchestra company and its director rüegg were able to foster distinct music personalities, many of whom have helped shape the character of European jazz and contemporary improvised music and will continue to do so: in the 1970s: Werner Pirchner, Harry Pepl, Lezek Zadlo; in the 1980s: Lauren Newton, Herbert Joos, Bumi Fian, Hannes Kottek, Wolfgang Puschnig, Roman Schwaller, Harry Sokal, Uli Scherer, Janusz Stefanski, Wolfgang Reisinger, Joris Dudli, Jürgen Wuchner, Heiri Känzig, John Sass, Woody Schabata; in the 1990s: Matthieu Michel, Klaus Dickbauer, Florian Bramböck, Frank Tortiller, Christian Muthspiel, Claudio Pontiggia, Ursula Dudziak, Corin Curschellas; from 2000: Mario Gonzi, Jojo Mayer, Ingrid Oberkanins, Martin Koller, Georg Breinschmid, Hans Strasser, Robert Riegler, Wolfgang Muthspiel, Alegre Corrêa, Tobias Weidinger, Thorsten Benkenstein, Thomas Gansch, Juraj Bartós, Arkady Shilkloper, Adrian Mears, Robert Bachner, Ed Partyka, Nico Gori, Joris Roelofs, Herwig Gradischnig, Roman Janoska; and as a result of chamber-musical reloading: young classics such as Johanna Gröbner, Matthias Kronsteiner or Thomas Frey. And then there’s “Sir” Harry Sokal, whose almost legendary saxophone solos invariably swept away the band, audience, and critics for 33 years.

History also thrives on memories. This is made quite plain by Mathias Rüegg’s new, (of course) knowledgeable, concise, and occasionally astutely profound compilation, a “Best of…” of his ten big band years with Universal and its subsidiaries from PolyGram and Verve to Emarcy. What’s more, taken together, the mottos of the individual CDs from the decade between 1998 and 2007 should be seen as spelling out the motto governing over 30 years of VAO performances: Art & Fun. Or, as rüegg described them, with a smile: “If you feel like being entertained, fly you to the moon; if you feel like listening, close your eyes; if you feel like dreaming, darn that dream; if you feel like dancing, dance in the dark.”

It’s a good idea to stick to this advice when in the middle of this extract of recordings — after track 9 of CD 2, at the latest, beginning with Satie’s “Gnossienne No. 1” and on to “Anitras’ Dance” and “Quelques petits moments” — the orchestra’s sound slowly and consistently changes. What is apparent here is not only the VAO’s almost missionary zeal and its driving force, namely to declare obsolete the boundaries between art and commerce, between European and American aesthetics; here, the vibrant nucleus of this compilation, the condensed version of the VAO’s transformations is revealed.

But let’s begin with “All that Strauss, Vol. II”. Let’s assume it was not without intention that Mathias Rüegg chose the “Fledermaus-Ouvertüre” as the opener for this sampler. For one, it is regarded as one of Johann Strauss’ greatest creative feats. It introduces a large number of motifs of the following work and its dynamics pose a formidable challenge to any top-class orchestra. — Thus, one feature of the VAO begins to emerge.

On the other hand, what seems to have tipped the balance in favor of this opener was not only its international renown and success in America but also the working method of the Strauss Orchestra, which appears to have resembled that of the VAO fairly closely: Strauss had no difficulties in finding melodies; he jotted down his ideas on anything close at hand, then gathered his orchestra around him — always a chamber orchestra, by the way —, arranged, corrected, and right away went on to perform the piece, the melodies of which were often tailored to suit specific soloists. All that also amounts to a further characteristic of the VAO, and with Strauss, too, the media described the result as “witty, elegant, stimulating, and thrilling music from Vienna.” In the end, the realization of the “Fledermaus” stood on a shaky foundation for a long time, the first performance had to be postponed repeatedly. This was due to the economic crisis that followed the so-called “Long Depression” or “Panic of 1873,” which is to say the great stock market crash that had severely rattled financial markets. Sic!

In any case, still unimpressed by the financial crises in 2000, “All that Strauss, Vol II.” took shape as a successor product to the VAO’s legendary New Year’s Concert at Vienna’s Sophiensäle. With the two Strauss productions, the VAO did not stray far from the originals. And it didn’t have to, as Strauss, according to rüegg, “had, of course, already anticipated all the features of 20th century popular music,” and this offhand remark also says a lot as to his general approach to the monoliths of musical history. Not only Strauss worked with his musicians over very long periods of time to develop a specific sound, Duke Ellington and Charles Mingus did so, too. For Mathias Rüegg it was, therefore, a compelling conclusion that there was simply no getting around the two big band giants. Quite to the contrary. Here, two good genies came together who were to share the VAO as their common bottle: While, ultimately, Ellington was a classic song composer, Mingus, despite being a strong melodician, was more interested in complex structures comprising changes of rhythm and tempo as well as free (often also collective) improvisation. Consequently, the VAO too a careful approach, to Mingus once and to Ellington three times — and straight away rose to become their legitimate heir: For the first time in 1993, in the lead-up to the subsequent intense big band years, so to speak, with “The Original Charts of Duke Ellington & Charles Mingus.” Originals which, in the case of Mingus, in part had to first be reconstructed. In the process, the VAO attempted to adjust the sound of Ellington’s and Mingus’ bands to their own possibilities and orient themselves towards, as rüegg put it, their “spirit” and “archaic power.” Six years later, rüegg even made one of Mingus’ compositions the VAO’s program: “Duke Ellington’s Sound of Love” (the 2003 Vol. II contained a slightly adapted live recording) comprised a subjective selection of mostly little-known pieces by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn. Strauss, Ellington, and Mingus were to appear more frequently in the VAO’s repertoire. For instance on “Swing & Affairs” (2005), a program that served up an unconventional mixture of succinct classic and supple jazz motifs, something that had by now become typical of rüegg: The above-mentioned heroes of composition were now joined by Monk, Satie, Schubert, Strayhorn — in short: the sparkling amalgam of the “European Songbook. Inspired by Verdi, Wagner & Schubert” (1995) and the “Nine Immortal Non-Evergreens for Eric Dolphy” (1997), even though the two last-mentioned CDs are not big band recordings. The big band years with Universal were, in part, marked by the fact that Mathias Rüegg had, as far as possible, taken a back seat as a composer and, as an MOC of academic precision, a perfectionist master of ceremony, that is, had instead explored different theme-oriented programs in a meticulous and unforgettable manner. The original actionist orchestra changed its hitherto somewhat unusual instrumentation and presented itself as a big band, at first with a classic wind section and later occasionally with two percussion sections — an electric and acoustic one. It turned out the VAO was as a mature eclectic sound ensemble that had not lost its brainpower, humor, and wit, conceived of swing as a quality and was able to also work consistently on dramaturgically structured programs: “VAO plays for Jean Cocteau” (1996) for instance, “Unexpected Ways” (1997), or “Ballads” (1997), a production which, not least with the help of participating international stars such as Helen Merrill, Linda Sharrock, Betty Carter, Sheila Jordan, or Urszula Dudziak, gets to heart of the VAO’s commitment to European and American heritage. And thus stands as a striking pillar in the impressive arcade of sound connecting the albums “from no art to mo(z)art” (1983) and “American Rhapsody: A Tribute to George Gershwin” (1998), or “Blues for Brahms” (1988), and “Swing & Affairs.” Rüegg has been quoted as saying, not without reason: “In case an expert has heard parts, quotations, originals, or arrangements of Bach, Mozart, Bartok, Strawinsky, Tristano, or Monk, he is not mistaken. If his memory fails him, however, we take that as a compliment: He has recognized our individuality.” A leitmotif, for the years after 2000, in which rüegg, with tremendous energy, ambition, and self-assertion again composed himself: “Artistry in Rhythm” laid the foundations for brilliant conceptual albums such as “Centenary Journey” (2001), “Art & Fun” (on the occasion of the 25th anniversary in 2002), or “Big Band Poesie” (2004), the common denominator of which is the aesthetics of the intensity of lived momentum. Together, they can be described as an associative motley of different chapters of musical history, an intense reflection on the orchestra’s own development, and on account of their forcefulness once again: more than the sum of its parts. The magnum opus “3,” a trilogy, marked the orchestra’s 30th anniversary in 2007. It comprised 39 compositions and three programs, namely “American Dreams,” “European Visionaries,” and “Visionaries & Dreams.” The VAO’s by now doubtlessly transcontinental tree-forked musical roots now bore its essential fruit. In a striking climax, a hundred years of American history, represented by thirteen portraits of women, of film icons from Jean Harlow to Marilyn Monroe, met with the history of a thousand years of European ideas, represented by men like Francis of Assisi or Stephen Hawking, and in the third part (remember “Fe & Males”) formed colorful pairs. “American Dreams” was followed by “3rd Dream,” a radical turning point in the VAO’s development. When seen against the backdrop of the band’s history and rüegg’s exploration of chamber music as a composer, it did not come entirely as a surprise. It was somewhat of a surprise that in the 21st century an all-new sound could still be invented at all. Even though rüegg, not entirely lacking in vanity, had asserted his intention to further the development of music and hone the orchestra’s sound all along, hardly anyone had anticipated the boldness with which he staged the orchestra’s rebirth and, thus, generated new worlds of sensation and perception. However, despite media acclaim, not with event organizers and audiences. The future also needs the past: Sometimes, we have to take the long way to reach a destination. With “3rd Dream,” Mathias Rüegg and the VAO have, after 33 years, finally achieved their aim of realizing a Euro-American music, one that is entertaining as it is demanding and forges a both moving and contemplative path into the still-young millennium. There’s a fresh feel to it. Der Standard wrote: “A window has been opened to the future…” The dream would have come true. Perhaps that’s why — with a bittersweet undertone — this compilation ends with the song “Innocence of Clichés”? (emarcy. com)