1. Jazz Alchemy:
   Still Bebop 6:13
2. Three Problems
   (duo version 2) 5:04
3. Jazz Alchemy:
   The Nod 3:47
4. Three Three Problems
   (solo version 1) 3:22
5. Jazz Alchemy:
   Out-Rock 8:40
6. Jazz Alchemy:
   Self-portrait 5:38
   
7. Three Problems
   (solo version 2) 6:00
8. Jazz Alchemy:
   Brooding 10:26
9. Three Problems
   (duo version 1) 4:39
10. Jazz Alchemy:
    Latin Gretchen 5:33
11. Three Problems
    (solo version 3) 9:49

LABOR RECORD ANNOUNCES THE Re-RELEASE OF HEINER STADLER'S JAZZ ALCHEMY

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LAB 7024

A pioneering album of merging jazz and contemporary composition.

Heiner Stadler's Jazz Alchemy (LAB 7024) is a transformation more than two decades in the process, comprising wide-ranging variations on two compositions which he wrote in the 60's and 70, and recorded at sessions in 1974, '75, and '88. Classical pianist Joshua Pierce, the duo of Marilyn Crispell (piano) and Reggie Workman (bass), and the trio of trumpeter Charles McGhee (who at times plays two horns at once!), bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Brian Brake take Stadler's song structures beyond genre distinction by sublime acts of musical sorcery.

Jazz Alchemy – actually an amalgam between the 6-movement work of the same title (Still Be-Bop, The Nod, Out-Rock, Self-portrait, Brooding and Latin Gretchen) and the composer's Three Problems (inspired by a line of William Faulkner) – takes on the traditional conflict between written-out music and jazz improvisation. With the most modern of means, it sets out to create a resolution that is as new today as it was when these works and recordings were created.

Heiner Stadler is a composer, producer, and creative artist who has worked across the borders of Europe and America, of jazz, blues, world, baroque, classical, romantic and contemporary music. Born in West Prussia (now part of Poland), brought up in Hamburg, Germany, and a resident of New York since 1965, Stadler has been in the forefront of musicians, composers and record producers to cross over between modern classical music and jazz.

Stadler has composed and arranged works ranging from solo piano to big band. His widely acclaimed "Tribute to Bird and Monk" on the Tomato label received the highest rating in Down Beat. He is the recipient of 4 jazz composition grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and 1 grant from the Creative Artists Service Program of the State of New York.

REVIEW

Most of these abstract pieces by Heiner Stadler were originally recorded and released back in the 1970s. Stadler doesn't play on them, leaving that task to some of the finest avant-garde jazzers. The "Jazz Alchemy" suite, in six parts, is performed by trumpeter Charles McGhee, bassist Richard Davis, and drummer Brian Brake. "Three Problems," a single composition presented in five different versions, is played twice by the duo of bassist Reggie Workman and pianist Marilyn Crispell and three times by the solo pianist Joshua Pierce. (The duo pieces were recorded in 1988.)

For the purpose of this CD reissue, Stadler combines "Jazz Alchemy" and "Three Problems" to form a sort of meta-suite. Devoid of harmonic structure, the music is an encounter between free jazz and serialist composition. It's all rather ingenious: the changing ensemble formats, the two works telescoped together, and the subtle intervallic relationships that Stadler uses as a basis for each movement. There's a point, however, where Stadler's ingenuity ends and that of the players begins. These instrumental masters of the avant-garde are the real attraction here. The weighty low-end ruminations of the bassists, Davis and Workman, are particularly sagacious.
- David R. Adler, All Music Guide