Franz Koglmann - Near Blue - A Taste of Melancholy

2024
More a tendency than a tale, Viennese flugelhornist Franz Koglmann’s new session should be appreciated more for the timbral colors he sprinkles on his musical canvas than as a defined narrative. Mixing new compositions with renovations on older ones, Koglmann spreads the sound tinctures with unique strokes, using as his paint brushes the members of an unusually constituted septet. Lacking a conventional double bass and drum section, the darkened colors are the result of warm pumps from Raoul Herget’s tuba.

Bright hues emanate from his flugelhorn’s puffs and flutters, Kurt Franz Schmid’s clarinet glissandi and fluid lines from Gert Schubert’s violin. There’s a similar glow when Sandro Miori plays his alto flute; although his saxophone work is more vigorous. Meanwhile trombonist Rudolf Ruschel adds the odd plunger snort. As for pianist Robert Michael Weiss, his subtle chording or dedicated key clips often present the rhythmic impetus during the 11 compositions. As an aside the CD actually has 22 tracks. After the suite has played, each track is repeated a second time in the same order, but this time in a Binaural mix for headphones.

Putting aside the audiophile and painterly aspects of the program, the focus should be on the ingenious arraignments. Taking cutes from notated European music, some traditional, but more contemporary, especially sounds from Vienna, and the unforced floating qualities of so-called Cool or West Coast Jazz, the flugelhornist’s scores are built around uncommon solos, accompaniment and groupings.

While many pieces have the melody moving from one player after another, tracks such as “Near Blue” and “Waltz For Bob”  depend on Weiss’ hard comping to bring in unabashed swing after expositions based on reed and brass interaction. Echoes of soignée café music, usually projected by the violinist also creep into the pieces. But the themes are protected from sliding into Middle European syrupiness, when peppy piano licks and matched horn slides preserve linear motion. Besides low-brass emphasis, another common trope used is creating a harmonic trio from flugelhorn portamento, keyboard shakes and sweeping trills from flute or clarinet.

Distinctive in itself, Near Blue should most interest those whose tastes run to progressive pastels.

Ken Waxman