Consuming the Tangible

The story of Austrian pianist Hermann Szobel is interesting enough before hearing a single note of his sole, eponymous album. You can check out the details here on All About Jazz; in the meantime, the aforementioned notes on Szobel are indeed something to behold. The Austrian pianist prodigy evokes the compositional prowess of Zappa like few others I’ve heard, and the man expertly weaves in rock, funk, and 20th-century modern classical arrangements without sacrificing the jazz firmament upon which his music is based. It’s wild, wooly, and a great gem of a record.

Szobel was only 18 when he brought the five tracks making up Szobel into the world, and while piano is certainly the focal point in terms of his melodies and chordal progressions, the instrumentation is vast and unafraid to bump analog and electric against each other. A song like “The Szuite” is the best example of how he brings everything together, anchoring the adventurous lines his fingers come up with to some incredible drumming courtesy of Bob Goldman. But the real (to me) MVP and the person who perhaps helps Szobel achieve that Zappa sound is Dave Samuels. He takes the Ruth Underwood role in the rockin’ teenage combo, handling percussion, marimba, and the all-important vibraphone, mirroring Szobel’s runs throughout the entirety of Szobel.

The percussive accent that sits aligned with the main melodic driver, whether it’s a piano or a guitar, has always been a Zappa signifier for me, sending me out into the world to discover artists like Milt Jackson and the Modern Jazz Quartet, or Bobby Hutchinson, whose playing with Miles Davis was the precursor to great solo recordings like Components (1966)and Happenings (1967). Samuels, along with Vadim Vyadro on a host of woodwinds, takes tunes like opener “Mr. Softee” and the very Zappa-indebted “Transcendental Floss” and transforms them into extended workouts, with some knockout solos and vamps that emphasize each member of Szobel’s players. Bassist Michael Visceglia takes the pole position for the deep funky “Between 7 & 11” which hides some menace in its sinister syncopations.

Is Szobel one of the oddest records to come out of Arista, or to have had as its genesis the great Roberta Flack (you DID read the article linked above, right?)? I’m going to go with yes. It took a while to track down a copy on vinyl, but it was 100% worth it. One of the great “one and done” albums of not only the ’70s, but of the last half century.