Axel Dörner - slide trumpet
Oliver Schwerdt - grand piano, percussion, little instruments
Julian Sartorius - drums, cymbals, percussion

01 Jul Fuel (8'39)
02 Drain Delicacy (7'32)
03 (Slip Fit) Fizz Blitz (Slit Kit) (23'24)
04 Briglifi, Neprotukah und die braunfaune Schrühkatze aus Kortopau (10'41)

A showcase of what modern avant-garde improvised music
is capable of in the second decade of this century,
what traditions it builds on and where it’s heading.
Simply incredible.
Martin Schray, The Free Jazz Collecitve

Dedicated to the release of the trio’s second album Fucking Ballads my concert with Baby Sommer and Barry Guy at the Festival in St. Johann in 2024 luckily proofs Els Vandeweyer, one of the members of the younger female empowered  E U P H O R I U M _ f r e a k e s t r a of 2022 (once to be realeased as Märchen von Uki und seinem Girlindltrupp), to be an attentive listener. Pointing out, my playing has reminded her of the style of the late Fred van Hove, she didn’t know me once sitting at the Total Music Meeting 2004 in the first row deeply impressed by the greatness of this grandmaster’s buttery rolling performance.
Alongside the following years of my intense musicological study of the develoment of contemporary improvised music focussing the dynamization of the linear-metrical structure I got practically very close to the strategies that Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and Christian Lillinger realized in that respect on the levels of tone and rhythm (listen to White Power Blues, Short Night!). In 2013 I took advantage of the opportunity to vary my bassless wind trio instrumentally. Next to the glissando work of the reed grandmaster the trumpet player of the younger generation after next arriving uses methodically the construction of his special slide trumpet.
Working with the various personally varied bassless saxophone trios featuring Petrowsky, Peter Brötzmann, Akira Sakata, John Dikeman and Virginia Genta (2006-21) I came up with the idea of sequencing the music while structuring the ensemble’s configurational potential. Starting with the trio we got used to widen it to a quintet with two basses and occasionally splitting up to present a bass duet on ist own. Switching to lead the bassless trumpet trio I then decided to start soloing on the grand piano, let follow a piano drums-duo, present a trio piece and close with a trumpet solo. In the run of my efforts to enhance my solo piano work (starting 2011 to be released as …und dann Ich, solo, nur an den Tasten!) the opening piece of Dirn Bridge indeed might have caught an hovish gesture for the first time.
Eight years later my design of an evening with my windless piano trio comes along with another invitation of Axel Dörner. Eight albums released on EUPHORIUM Records so far have presented him once, 2009, within a marvellous duet with Wadada Leo Smith (Free Acoustic Supergroup) and twice, 2013 and 2015, with a work as an unaccompanied soloist (London Leipzig Luzern, Berlin). To complete the line-up for the two groups I for the first time have taken Julian Sartorius into account. The second bassless trumpet trio is going to happen personally varied. Once set up this instrumental constellation constructively as Dirn Bridge, now Jul Fuel is gonna make us listen to the sound driven by the new propellant.!

Format: CD
Price: 24,99 €
ISBN: 978-3-944301-64-8
Ordering: oliverschwerdt@euphorium.de
Digital download:
Digital download: https://drner-pauer-schwerdt.bandcamp.com/album/jul-fuel

Reviews:

Jul Fuel unfolds more like a tale of three cities than a singular statement—especially when the tracks are experienced in album order. The release transitions from a solo piano performance to a piano-drum duet, a trio performance, and, finally, a slide trumpet solo. At its core, however, Jul Fuel revolves around German improviser Axel Dorner, even in moments when his horn is silent.
Pianist and label chief Oliver Schwerdt takes on dual roles here: as an innovative artist and a dedicated promoter of avant-garde music. Over the years, he has collaborated with and organized performances featuring an impressive roster of legends such as Peter Brötzmann, Akira Sakata, Barry Guy, Gunter Sommer, Wadada Leo Smith and Barre Phillips. Schwerdt also champions a younger generation of talent, including Christian Lillinger, Antonio Borghini and, as showcased on this album, Julian Sartorius.
The album opens with Jul Fuel, a solo piano piece in which Schwerdt channels a Cecil Taylor-inspired ferocity. As a performer, he demonstrates an acute ear for the dramatic, stretching both hands across the keyboard to create intricate, multi-layered textures. His playing engages both hemispheres of the brain: the left side, categorizing percussive rhythms into modular patterns, and the right, weaving disparate sounds into cohesive musical threads. The piece grows from moments of quiet introspection to a dense, tangled flurry of notes.
Following the solo, the album transitions to the duo track Drain Delicacy, where Schwerdt partners with drummer Sartorius, renowned for his work with pianists Colin Vallon and Sylvie Courvoisier. Together, they emphasize the percussive qualities of their instruments. Sartorius' deft brushwork pushes Schwerdt to explore unconventional techniques, transforming the piano into a percussive machine while interjecting bursts of thunderous left-hand chords.
These earlier tracks serve as a prelude to the album's centerpiece, (Slip Fit) Fizz Blitz (Slit Kit), where Dörner joins Schwerdt and Sartorius. In this trio setting, Schwerdt and Sartorius play in service to Dörner's slide, a cornerstone of his unique improvisational language on trumpet. Dörner, known for his versatility—whether interpreting Thelonious Monk's music with Alexander von Schlippenbach, exploring off-kilter bebop with Die Enttäuschung, or crafting minimalist free improvisation—delivers an extraordinary palette of sounds. His trumpet produces everything from gargled tones and breathy whispers to explosive, animalistic roars. The 23-minute performance is a seamless interplay, with piano mirroring trumpet, trumpet echoing drums and each instrument contributing to a continuous, evolving musical dialogue.
The album concludes with Dörner's solo performance, Briglifi, Neprotukah und die braunfaune Schruhkatze von Kortopau. Here, he leaves no technique unexplored, employing circular breathing to move from faint whispers to a thunderous cacophony reminiscent of a jet engine. ate.
ALL ABOUT JAZZ, Mark Corroto (https://www.allaboutjazz.com/jul-fuel-dorner-schwerdt-sartorius-euphorium-records [20250203].

Auf rasende Tasten-Fahrten mit fliessenden Stop-and-Gos und fantastischen Schlünden einstellen darf sich, wer dem Leipziger Pianisten Oliver Schwerdt seine Gehörgänge öffnet. Der umtriebige Musiker, Autor, Musik- und Kulturwissenschaftler hat in den letzen Jahren ein paar akustische Heftigkeiten durchgeschleust, befeuert von Saxophonisten wie Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky oder Peter Brötzmann und anderen Schwergewichten freier Improvisation wie Barry Guy und Günter Baby Sommer. Natürlich assoziert das solistische Eröffnungsstück in seiner strukturalistischen Wucht Cecil Taylor, und das hält das Album auch später ein, denn Jul Fuel entwickelt sich zu einem hochkarätig avantgardistischen Trio-Album. Das wird umso deutlichen, wenn sich Julian Sartorius und Axel Dörner in die Kaskaden von Schwerdt einklinken. Julian Sartorius setzt - als Jul Fuel der Treibstoff dieses Trios - den Klavier-Wänden von Schwerdt und dem kosmischen Wimmern von Dörner sein so knochentrockenes Gepolter wie filigranes Gerattel entgegen und zieht damit dem Exzessiven auch den Stachel der Verblendung. Sein Teibstoff entschleunigt, statt die Überhitzung zu fördern. Axel Dörner entpuppt sich als genialischer Klangwandler. Hier ist ein Instrumentalist, der nicht nur in einer eigenen Liga spielt, sondern seine Klangeinsätze in den langen Tracks derart zuspitzt, morpht und dramaturgisiert, dass vielleicht enige treue Jazzhörer in einer Landschaft erwachen, von der sie noch nie geträut haben. Und den Nachhause-Weg zum Post-Bop nicht mehr finden werden.
JAZZ'N'MORE, Pirmin Bossart (Jazz'n'More Januar/Februar 2025, Nr. 1/2025) (202501), S. 47.

When we reviewed (and very often praised) Oliver Schwerdt’s projects on this website, it has usually been about his quintets with two basses, drums and piano plus a saxophone hero (Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, Peter Brötzmann or Akira Sakata) or the reduced version of these bands in the form of a trio. But Schwerdt can also do things differently. In 2021 and 2024, he released two trio recordings with Barry Guy on bass and Günter Baby Sommer on drums, which musically pointed in a slightly different direction compared to the powerhouses of the quintets. Schwerdt had already played with trumpeter Axel Dörner in 2016, but the drummer at the time was Roger Turner. On Jul Fuel, however, Julian Sartorius took over.
In the liner notes for this excellent recording, Schwerdt mentions that at the 2024 festival in St. Johann the Dutch vibraphonist Els Vandeweyer told him - after watching his show with the above-mentioned trio with Guy and Sommer - that his “playing has reminded her of the style of the late Fred Van Hove“. Although Schwerdt confirms that he was impressed and influenced by the “greatness of this grandmaster’s buttery rolling performance“, I still see a lot of Cecil Taylor in his playing. Jul Fuel starts with a solo by Schwerdt, in which he first lays out a sound tapestry of runs and clusters, letting the notes bump, clang and whir back and forth. The improvisation throbs like an enormous but irregular heartbeat, before it comes to an abrupt stop. Both Van Howe and Taylor can be heard here.
On Drain Delicacy the drums enter, and even if Julian Sartorius uses the bass drum very pointedly, his playing with his high-pitched drum set is reminiscent of Tony Oxley, Taylor’s preferred drummer in his late phase. Schwerdt is also pushed by Sartorius’s style, he knocks out short, almost crazy, super-short passages, he works the inside of the instrument, it sounds as if he’s angry at the piano itself, before he drives the improvisation forward with dark runs. The whole thing is stretched further with whip-like strokes of the right hand and before dissolves.
It all sounds like an homage to Taylor, but it’s not at all, because anyone who thought Axel Dörner was doing the Raphé Malik (Taylor’s trumpeter on some of his most famous records) when he joins the duo was on the wrong track. Because the whole concept of the show makes suddenly sense. With Dörner, the European avant-garde finds its way into this set, we leave the paths that free jazz seemed to have set and move into the exploration of sounds that are darker than those of similar projects. The construct thrives on the contrasts between the deep growl of Schwerdt’s left hand and Dörner’s crushed, ultra-high notes (these are the greatest moment of this recording). (Slip Fit) Fizz Blitz (Slit Kit), at more than 23 minutes the centerpiece of this album, is like a showcase of what modern avant-garde improvised music is capable of in the second decade of this century, what traditions it builds on and where it’s heading. This is also visible structurally, as the set ends with a spectacular ten-minute solo by Axel Dörner. If you want to see how Jaimie Branch must have felt when she first heard his recordings and why she was so enthusiastic about his style, then this is the right place for you. The way he transforms his instrument into an abstract sound generator with a variety of extended techniques and how he switches from a quiet, dense phase to a noisy passage, which he interrupts with pauses, is simply incredible.
Jul Fuel is another construction stone in Oliver Schwerdt’s very independent, consistent musical building. It’s a pleasure to accompany him as a listener.
THE FREE JAZZ COLLECTIVE, Martin Schray (https://www.freejazzblog.org/2024/11/oliver-schwerdt-axel-dorner-julian.html [20241122]).

Axel Dörner/Oliver Schwerdt/Julian Sartorius, Jul Fuel, live am 14.11.21 in der naTo, Leipzig, im Doppelprogramm mit dem als Fucking Ballads bereits vorliegenden Gig mit Barry Guy & Baby Sommer. Letzteres ein markantes Beispiel für die windless Piano Trios alternativ zu Schwerdts prominenterer bassless Sax-Trio-Reihe mit den Altmeistern Petrowsky, Brötzmann und zuletzt Sakata oder, in deren Fußstapfen, John Dikeman. Spielgefährten in diesem bassless Trumpet Trio waren erneut Axel Dörner, wie schon bei Dirn Bridge (2013) mit Lillinger an den Drums. Und erstmals und bisher einmalig mit Sartorius jener Schweizer Schlagzeuger, dessen im Spiel im Colin Vallon Trio, mit Sophie Hunger, Gyda Valtysdottir, Alabaster DePlume oder Manuel Troller ausgefeilte Versatilität Sylvie Couvoisier so genoss, dass sie ihm ein Stück gewidmet hat. Sartorius hat also mit Pianos erprobte Ohren, und weder Schwerdts solistischer Einstieg mit klirrendem Hammerklavier noch dessen Quirlen, Spritzen, Wühlen, Donnern, Flimmern im anschließenden Duett stoßen bei ihm auf Ungeduld oder Ungefasstheit, dafür ist er als Tickler, Tupfer, polternder oder federnder Knatterer, Schaber, Pauker und Tockler einfach zu cool. Beim 23 ½ min. Fizz Blitz zu dritt konterkariert Schwerdt seine temperamentvolle Wallung und virtuose, nahezu nancarrowesk verdichtete Rasanz mit auch noch perkussiven Fisimatenten. Dörner biegt dazu Hornstöße, zwitschert, presst Spucke durch verstopfte Ventile, er bebopt, steigt Treppen, lässt die Trompete murren, trillern, Sprünge machen und bläst tonlos zu Sartorius' klopfendem Diminiuendo. Und Dörner gestaltet mit einem 10 ¾ min. Solo auch den 4. 'Satz' dieser ungewöhnlichen Dramaturgie: Mit einer bis zur Unkenntlichkeit zerquetschten Trompete, der er aber rabiat doch wieder quäkendes Leben abpresst, windschiefe, ploppende, pfeifende, rau fauchende Laute aus zuletzt nur noch dem letzten Loch und mit letztem Zungenschlag. Bei St. Briglifi, St. Neprotukah und der braunfaunen Sprühkatze aus Kortopau, das ist fuckin' KRASS!!!i
BAD ALCHEMY, Rigobert Dittmann (Bad Alchemy Nr. 126) (202411), S. 45).

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