Puppenhaus-Jazz macht Spazz-progressive jazz-rock-70sCD

  Puppenhaus     Jazz macht Spazz 

NEW CD

"No progressive rock music fan should be misled by the album title Jazz macht Spazz, a bowdlerization of 'jazz makes fun,' this is progressive jazz-rock at its best. Büdi Siebert (flutes and saxes), Herbert Binder (gt), Frank Fischer (bass), later with Release Music Orchestra, Thomas Rabenschlag (keys) and drummer Bea Maier (later with Zomby Woof and Moira), all well trained on the instruments, played a varied, inventive, melodic and often furious kind of music with lots of Krautrock magic influenced by Frank Zappa, King Crimson, Soft Machine and Weather Report.

5 titles on this CD were recorded at German radio station SWF, 2 titles are live recordings (taped from the soundboard), all in all 77 minutes of great flute and sax playing, furious and lyrical guitar and bass work, hypnotic rhythm patterns and perfect keyboard sounds.

Hard to believe that Puppenhaus never recorded an album. Digitally remastered from original master tapes. CD comes with comprehensive booklet, band story by the musicians, many photos and especially with a wonderful cover based on a painting by drummer Bea Maier. Highly recommended."

It was the time when beat music bade its farewell, the time when all sorts of musical styles were heard in just one show, loved by everyone, and rock and pop music was born. There were the ¿progressive¿ musicians, and those who played pop and disco music. One of the progressive ones was a group initially called ¿Puppenhaus Kaiser Blumenstrauss¿, which had been founded by three school friends ¿ Bea Maier, Helmut Krebs and Frank Fischer.

They were joined by other musicians who left again after a little while. Büdi, who had been trying for years to join a band, heard the trio and was so inspired, that he started playing the flute and the saxophone, rather than his usual guitar, in order to perform with them ¿ which he did, only 4 months (!) after buying the instruments. Rehearsals took place on the weekends, in a small factory storeroom in Göppingen.

They were getting more and more serious with each concert; Zappa, King Crimson, John McLaughlin, Traffic, Yes, Fleetwood Mac, Dauners Et Cetera, amongst others, were their heroes. After moving to Tübingen they decided to look for a place where they could rehearse and live together.

Helmut Krebs left the group and went on to study arts. He was replaced by Herbert Binder, an excellent guitarist, who was influenced by Hendrix. An old farmhouse served as their new home, and the old pigsty was converted into a rehearsal room. Their daily routine was very busy and in no way resembled the life of the usual commune dwellers. During the day they would study, work, do jobs, and rehearse every night. Their compositions would become more and more complex, sometimes resembling musical lindworms. Soon it became obvious that the band needed a keyboarder, since their style was moving in the direction of jazz, and hence Thomas Rabenschlag, an excellent pianist, joined the band. They gave many concerts, went on small tours, had radio and TV gigs, with strongholds in Freiburg, Tübingen and the Bavarian Forest. Fans would travel there from as far as Munich to listen to the freaky mixture of progressive music with taunting and humorous inserts. Büdi would do the ¿original Pete Townshend jump¿ during the ¿I am the horny pop star¿ insert, and in the end Frank would jump to the double switch that sparked the flash for the grand final chord of ¿We are going to let the pig out.¿ Eventually Wolfgang Grupp, a proper roadie, joined the group.

 ¿We had a Mercedes bus and a decent P.A.. Nobody was quite aware of the fact that we belonged to the avant-garde musicians of Southern Germany and lived in a music commune.

We were really only trying to make sure we had what we needed for rehearsing as much as possible and juggle the rest.¿ With Miles Davis, Weather Report, Soft Machine and Doldingers Passport the interest in rock jazz was steadily increasing, and music became more jazzy and keyboard oriented. Hence guitarist Herbert Binder left the band, and Puppenhaus continued as a mere quartet, until Büdi and Thomas, inspired by the political atmosphere of the 70ies, decided to turn their back on ¿imperialist¿ mass culture in order to make music with a meaningful content, whatever that meant. The group split up, which must have been one of the very few split ups for political reasons.

Frank Fischer became bassist with Release Music Orchestra, and Bea Maier played with various local bands such as Zomby Woof from Reutlingen, Nill samt Dill (Mössingen/Tübingen), Granny Smith (Tübingen) as well as Moira from the Nürtingen area. Also, he spent more and more time working in his job as chemical engineer and performing the fine arts. Büdi and Thomas both went on to study music in Stuttgart and founded the ¿Brokdorfer Kantate¿ released on the Cologne based label Eigelstein. Thomas moved to Switzerland and became the musical director of the Theater am Neumarkt in Zurich. Büdi joined the Eigelstein label, where he produced Bap¿s first successful record, amongst others.

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