Ruedi Hausermann
Just the One
Over the last decade more improvisers have put out overdubbed records, sometimes with great success. British saxophonists Evan Parker and John Butcher both recorded one-man multitrack CDs in 1991. And Chicago’s own sorely missed jazzketeer Hal Russell made a full-length record of single-handed multitrack pieces, Hal’s Bells (ECM), in 1992, just a year before he died. On it he played tenor and soprano saxes, trumpet, musette, drums, vibes, marimba, congas, and bells. And–not to forget his own dulcet tones–he also sang into his trademark cardboard megaphone. Like Bechet, Russell was perfect for the task; he started his professional career as a drummer and percussionist, picking up sax and trumpet under the influence of 60s free-jazzers Albert Ayler and Don Cherry. Russell also worked in vaudeville; no doubt he had a soft spot for the novelty and sideshow connotations of the one-man band. American jazz trumpeter Leo Smith has just released a solo overdub record called Kulture Jazz (ECM), and since the mid-80s some Swiss musicians have tried their hand at the format, including Jürg Hager, Markus Eichenberger, and Urs Leimgruber.
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On his multitrack excursion Just the One, Blochlinger plays alto, sopranino, and bass sax, flute, alto horn, trumpet, piano, organ, guitar, telephone, and some instruments I’ve never heard of (ch-phon and Chugelibahn, anyone?). As if to make fun of the single-mindedness of the project, he is actually joined by drummer Martin Gantenbein on the 59-second track “S’chunt Bsuech”; Blochlinger contributes superimpositions of answering machine and striking piano chords played back on a cheap tape recorder to the percussionist’s quick gestures. Blochlinger’s disc is more distinctly “jazzy” than Hausermann’s. In fact, one track asks the basic rhetorical question on many a listener’s mind these days: “Who is who, and to whom is what, in jazz?” This segues without break into the next track, “Early Morning Raga,” a tongue-in-cheek bottleneck-guitar blues solo. The unadulterated sopranino solos “Intime 2” and “Lee Minor Complex” bring to mind the slippery tone of great British reedman Lol Coxhill and his American antecedent Pee Wee Russell.
