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Heinz Sauer/Michael Wollny – 'Certain Beauty'

ACT Music – 9442-2

Heinz Sauer, Tenor saxophone; Michael Wollny, Piano.
Album recorded October 2005.

Just a year on from their first duet performance for ACT, Sauer and Wollny are again pitching the woo between saxophone and piano. I find this music accessible throughout, whether the tunes are familiar jazz classics or completely unknown to me, but so accessible in fact as to be devoid of much interest as a result of their brevity. Once again I find that the performances don’t deliver much, as there simply isn’t time to develop any stated ideas. It’s not a question of developing themes, say from the known tunes, but both musicians are clearly adept at consciously stating improvised ideas, then simply not taking them anywhere.

Both of the Monk tunes on the album illustrate my point. Evidence (2:34) and Ruby My Dear (4:06 – wow!) demonstrate intriguing presentations of new ways of stating the principal themes, move into improvisation of them, then quickly shut down. Either of these could quite easily have grown into a major piece and these duets have no need of the addition of other instruments to extend their listening value, as together the two musicians clearly own the facility to foster each other’s individualism and they maintain a sophisticated attentiveness to each other’s approach. There is an immediately apparent connectivity between them as they explore and exploit two seemingly different languages, yet bring them together as one.

There is a certain beauty here, forged from a chiaroscuro of force and gentleness both. It is intensely personal, yet with all of this it is not enough. It’s almost like a collection of short exercises for you to play along with and if you are learning to play jazz on either of these two instruments, you will find none better.

Reviewed by
ken cheetham
May 2006