Black Forest Chateau
Some of the biggest names in jazz found their sound in a villa in the heart of Germany. By Jim Irvin.
IN 1958, the co-owner of the German electronics manufacturer SABA, Hans Georg Brunner-Schwer, an expert in sound equipment, accomplished pianist and knowledgeable jazz fan, built a recording studio in his villa in VillingenSchwenningen in the Black Forest region.
When Oscar Peterson came to Zurich to perform a concert in 1961, Brunner-Schwer invited him to his home studio, promising him the best sound he’d ever heard. Peterson was indeed impressed by HGBS’s crystalline recording of the performance he gave at the house: “I never heard myself like this before…” He returned every year for similar events, making recordings which couldn’t be released commercially while Peterson was under contract to Verve, but which circulated nonetheless among connoisseurs.
In 1968, Brunner-Schwer left SABA to start his own jazz label, MPS, standing for Musik Produktion Schwarzwald, “Black Forest music productions,” but later advertised as “Most Perfect Sound”. In effect it became a German equivalent of Blue Note, a jazz label famed for its sound, in this case one of startling clarity, where pianos sparkle, hi-hats glisten and bass notes exude a warm pressure not apparent in lesser recordings.
Once word got around about the quality of the work coming out of MPS, major names in jazz – Dizzy Gillespie, Cecil Taylor, Sun Ra, Freddie Hubbard, Joe Henderson and Jim Hall – began coming to Germany to record with Brunner-Schwer and he began to travel to visit them. Though he specialised in pianists – in addition to Peterson were Bill Evans, Count Basie, veteran Brit George Shearing and the playful Jamaican pianist Monty Alexander – he recorded all kinds of musicians. He was fond of jazz violinists JeanLuc Ponty, Don ‘Sugarcane’ Harris, the great Stéphane Grappelli and, from a younger generation, Didier Lockwood. He also, naturally, recorded the cream of German jazz players, among them Volker Kriegel, Wolfgang Dauner, and brothers Joachim and Rolf Kühn, plus artists from across the globe: limpid Brazilian guitarist Baden Powell, Indian sarod player Ali Akbar Khan and crossover funk-meister George Duke, who became a label favourite.
In 1983, when the budgets for recording jazz had irrevocably dwindled, Brunner-Schwer switched to recording classical music, bringing the same quality to his HGBS label, and leased the rights to MPS to Polydor. Ten years after his death in 2004, Edel records took over the catalogue and now Brunner-Schwer’s son Andreas and long-time colleague Friedhelm Schulz head the team recording once again in Villingen. New artists include singers Malia and China Moses, Brazilian mandolinist Hamilton De Holanda, and the German trio led by pianist Julia Kadel, who were the first jazz artists to record in the villa in four decades.
MPS is officially relaunched this month with a slew of new recordings, over 100 titles from the catalogue newly available to stream, and a core score of its legacy titles available again on vinyl and CD.
These include: Exclusively
For My Friends ★★★★, an
8-CD box of those shimmering Oscar Peterson recordings, Magic Peterson
Sunshine ★★★★, a fascinating compilation of label favourites by Gilles Peterson (no relation), six titles by George Duke, including 1974’s Feel ★★★★, which features Flora Purim and Frank Zappa; swinging singer Mark Murphy’s 1968 album Midnight Mood ★★★★ (originally on SABA); Baden Powell’s gorgeous Images On Guitar ★★★★, Ella Fitzgerald’s stirring 1968 show recorded in San Francisco, Sunshine Of Your Love ★★★, in its vivid yellow sleeve. In equally arresting bright orange garb, there’s Bill Evans’ Symbiosis
★★★★★, an album of bold, rousing big-band compositions, where Bill comes on like Gil Evans. Just one highlight in a catalogue of more than 500 recordings that all jazz fans will want to explore.
“In effect, MPS became a German equivalent of Blue Note.”