JEAN-LUC PONTY & WOLGANG DAUNER

LIVE AT THE BERN JAZZ FESTIVAL 

TRACKING LIST

1. ONCE UPON A DREAM   (6:06)

    (Jean-Luc Ponty)

2. DRACHENBURG FUR R   (11:12)

    (Wolfgang Dauner)  

3. SUITE FOR CLAUDIA   (4:10)

   (Jean-Luc Ponty)

4. TWO THOUSAND - ONE YEARS AGO   (3:34)

    (Jean-Luc Ponty)

5. PORGY & BESS   (8:34)

    (George Gershwin) 

6. PAMUKKALE    (8:45)

    (Wolfgang Dauner)

7. UP AND DOWNER    (4:26)

    (Wolfgang Dauner)

8. HONG KONG FU  (5:11)

    (Wolfgang Dauner)

Jean-Luc Ponty 5-string violin and Wolfgang Dauner grand piano on all tracks except #4. "Two Thousand - One Years Ago" violin solo and #5. "Porgy And Bess" piano solo. 

LINER NOTES 

I was 24 years old when I first met Wolfgang Dauner, I was invited to collaborate with him and his band to perform his compositions for a Jazz TV show produced by NDR in Hamburg, Germany in 1967. I immediately loved his music and his playing, very avant-garde yet very melodic. We also went along real well and he invited me to perform with him again in Germany throughout the late 60s. 

We then lost contact after I moved to California in 1973. I embarked on new musical adventures, so did Wolfgang who was also among the pioneers in the jazz-rock movement in Germany.

We reconnected in 1995 when he invited me to perform as one of his guests for a special concert at Theaterhaus in Stuttgart to celebrate his 60th birthday. He suggested that we play a few tunes together as an acoustic duo and I loved it so much that I decided to do more concerts with this format. We then made a selection of his compositions and mine that worked best as a duo. Years later we heard the recording done by the Swiss Radio of our live performance at the Bern Jazz Festival in Switzerland in 2011 and we both agreed that we should release it as a live album some day. I was extremely saddened when Wolfgang passed away in January 2020 and the release of this album became even more important to me as it adds to the legacy that Wolfgang is leaving to the music world. It also feels very special for me to work again with the MPS label, for which Wolfgang and I have produced several recordings in the 1960s.   

JLP

(August 2020)