Paul Lovens 75 - Cologne, Loft, 9/1/2024

Photo by OhWeh

By Martin Schray

In recent years, things have gone quiet around Paul Lovens, one of the great drummers of European free jazz. His body has been bothering him (knees, back, hands), which was the reason why he decided that it no longer made sense to play live a few years ago. On the occasion of his 75th birthday in June, Hans Martin Müller, the man behind the Loft in Cologne, asked himself how the man could be honored and it turned out that this could be done as part of the Cologne Jazzweek. Müller - as he explains in his introduction - met Lovens in Aachen (Lovens’s home town) in the 1970s and, after founding the Loft almost 35 years ago, Lovens played there time and again. For the concert Müller coordinated the musicians who played at the Loft in Lovens’s honor with Lovens; all of them had played with the drummer at some point (with the exception of Michael Vatcher). And before the concert finally started, Müller said the crucial sentence: “Paul Lovens never had his own band under his name, but he made every band he played in better.“ Frank Gratkowski (alto saxophone and bass clarinet), Tobias Delius (saxophone, clarinet), Florian Stoffner (guitar), Philip Zoubek (piano), Wilbert De Joode (bass) and Michael Vatcher (drums and percussion) played in his honor. However, this was not supposed to be a sextet, but two trios. 

The basic idea for both trios was that the musical focus should be more of a chamber music style. Philip Zoubek, Frank Gratkowski and Michael Vatcher started off with a strong 20-minute set. Their three pieces in total were characterized by the above-mentioned rather chamber music-like playing style, which they didn’t maintain continuously - on the contrary. It was a constant alternation of spherical, meditative passages (especially with Gratkowski on bass clarinet), hard sections with harsh staccatos from Vatcher and almost what you could call classic free jazz of the old school. Extended playing techniques played an important role for all three on that night (Zoubek on the prepared piano, Vatcher on the singing saw and Gratkowski sometimes stuffs a glass of water into his sax).

The second set was then performed by Delius, Wilbert de Joode and Florian Stoffner. The music of this trio also thrives on the contrasts in improvisation, which - as with the trio before - blend together almost perfectly (which is all the more interesting because Stoffner has never played with Delius and de Joode before). This trio, however, places a somewhat stronger emphasis on the melodies, with Delius in particular repeatedly interspersing real swinging solos and de Joode also providing rather tender support, while Stoffner’s playing on this evening clearly shows how much he is obviously influenced by Derek Bailey (which is meant as a compliment). The whole thing is at its best when all three accelerate, Delius shouting into his sax, de Joode stroking the bass and using it like a rhythm guitar while Stoffner let the harmonics rain down. In these moment the trio sounded like some projects of the legendary British Incus label. It was as if you were listening to a swarm of insects in a dead tree stump. All in all a great trio that hopefully hasn't played together for the last time.

Anyone who would now like to see Paul Lovens once again and listen to music in his honor can still do so. On September 8 at 6 p.m., Sebi Tramontana (trombone) and Florian Stoffner (guitar) will be playing at the Musikbunker in Aachen. Paul will also be there.