Live at the Philharmonie (Remastered) Dave Pike Set

• 1 Hey Duke (Live) 05:37
• 2 Mambo Jack the Scoffer (Live) 05:24
• 3 Riff for Rent (Live) 05:20
• 4 Nobody's Afraid of Howard Monster (Live) 07:45
• 5 The Secret Mystery of Hensh (Live) 08:37
• Total Runtime 32:43

Info for Live at the Philharmonie (Remastered)

The third album of the legendary vibraphone player and his Set presents a deep insight into the gap-bridging wizardry from jazz improvisation to early acid-jazzy grooves to psychedelia to swinging humor. Originally released on MPS in 1970.

American vibraphonist Dave Pike gained fame from his work throughout the 60’s with popular jazz flutist Herbie Mann, recording 11 albums with Mann’s groups, also recorded with legendary pianists Bill Evans and Paul Bley. On moving to Europe, the Dave Pike Set became an instant success through the combination of Pike’s vibes play and German Volker Kriegel’s electric, acoustic, guitar and sitar play. Kriegel’s compositions helped create the quartet’s unique sound, encompassing jazz, funk, psychedelia, avant-garde, and ethno.

"Live at the Philharmonie was the Dave Pike Set's third record for MPS in the year 1969 alone; Noisy Silence-Gentle Noise (MPS 15215) and the stellar Four Reasons (MPS 15253) preceded it. One of the most interesting ideas about this amazing set of music concerns the notorious circumstances under which it was recorded, at the 1969 Berlin Jazz Days festival. The reason for this is the year itself: Miles Davis and his group had brought their fiery brand of electricity to jazz and its reverberations were being heard the world over. At the same time, prog rock and Krautrock were making their heads (considered ugly by jazz purists) known in the guises of Can, Neu!, Amon Düül, and Faust. Add to this Charlie Mariano's great band, the new hip embracing of rock culture by the Kenny Clarke-Francy Boland Big Band, Peter Herbolzheimer's Rhythm Combination & Brass, and any number of other groups, and Berlin was in a state of tension. The wild thing is, everybody agreed on Pike's group -- it was the bridge between the jazz tradition, what was transpiring, and what was to come. The band featured the leader on amplified vibes (he claims he was the first vibraphonist to have electric vibes), master guitarist and composer Volker Kriegel, bassist and cellist Johannes Anton Rettenbacher, and legendary drummer Peter Baumeister. The bottom line is this: Pike's band was smoking hot. Everybody could write, arrange, and play. The Dave Pike Set, as evidenced by this live date, walked inside every camp at one time, from bop and hard bop to rock, Eastern modal music, Latin, classical, pop, and virtually everything in between, but the meld was seamless.

The out and out swinger "Hey Duke," which opens the set, was funky hard bop with a pop melody; "Mambo Jack the Scoffer" walked the line between Celtic folk, Baroque classical, the dance music of the title, and lithe swinging jazz à la Brubeck and contemporary Vince Guaraldi (who Pike had heard and jammed with in America); Kriegel's rock guitar solos, as in "Riff for Rent," were stuck inside a slippery blues and soul-jazz frame. Straight-up funky rock meets smoking improv and the slippery invention of jazz harmonics and elastic rhythmic invention in "Nobody's Afraid of Howard Monster." And finally, Kriegel's "The Secret Mystery of Mensch" closes the set on a full-scale exploration of Eastern modal drone and psychedelic time stretching as a natural breeding ground for jazz. In other words, inside of 32 minutes the Dave Pike Set wowed the house and placed a temporal bridge between the warring cultural camps. And not because they compromised to water down any of the music that interested or influenced them. Nope. What the Dave Pike Set accomplished here is nothing short of astonishing. The band's studio records do it, too, but here the in-the-moment communication is wildly exciting and deeply satisfying. This disc hasn't been available in any form in America for over 30 years. SPV has made a beautifully remastered Japanese version of this album on CD, dressed in a gatefold album-like cover and containing the disc in black in a lined sleeve, with original liner notes in German and English with a new note from Pike, all slipped in a heavy paper wrapper to protect the case -- and it's affordable! This is one of the great Dave Pike records (there are quite a few), and one of the greatest jazz-rock era recordings that is all but unknown in America. Get it." (Thom Jurek, AMG)

Dave Pike, vibraphone
Volker Kriegel, guitar
Hans Rettenbacher, double bass, cello, e-bass
Peter Baumeister, drums

Digitally remastered

David Samuel Pike
(born March 23, 1938 in Detroit, Michigan) is a jazz vibraphone and marimba player. He appears on many Herbie Mann albums as well as those by Bill Evans, Nick Brignola, Paul Bley and Kenny Clarke. He has also recorded extensively as leader, including a number of albums on MPS Records.

He learned drums at the age of eight and is self-taught on vibes. Pike made his recording debut with the Paul Bley Quartet in 1958. He began putting an amplifier on his vibes when working with flautist Herbie Mann in the early 1960s. By the late 1960s, Pike's music became more exploratory, contributing a unique voice and new contexts that pushed the envelope in times remembered for their exploratory nature. Doors of Perception, released in 1970 for the Atlantic Records subsidiary Vortex Records and produced by former boss Herbie Mann, explored ballads, modal territory, musique concrète, with free and lyrical improvisation, and included musicians like alto saxophonist Lee Konitz, bassist Chuck Israels and pianist Don Friedman.

Pike's move to Europe and tenure at MPS Records records produced some of the most original jazz of the period. With the collaboration of Volker Kriegel (guitar), J. A. Rettenbacher (acoustic and electric bass), and Peter Baumeister (drums), he formed the Dave Pike Set. The group recorded six records from 1969-1972 that ran the gamut from funky grooves to free, textural territory. The group, though short-lived, created a unique identity and textural palette. Kriegel's compositional and instrumental (playing acoustic, classical, and electric guitar as well as sitar) contributions to the group helped set the Dave Pike Set's sound apart, organically incorporating influences from jazz, soul jazz, psychedelia, avant-garde music, and World music.

This album contains no booklet.