Hearing applause on an album particularly near the beginning as here on German drummer Wolfgang Haffner’s latest isn’t ideal. But it is a live album after all. A jazz-rock fusion funky affair it’s pretty decent to be fair but a bit too easy listening. The drummer, a member of the label’s 4WD, has great technique and you can hear his influence on other drummers. Previous albums of his include the three-part Kind Of… series.
Recorded during a German tour in November last year Haffner is with trumpeter Sebastian Studnitzky, guitarist Arto Mäkelä, keyboardist Simon Oslender and bassist Thomas Stieger.
‘Leo’ is the best track certainly where the trumpeter comes into his own. Overall if it has a fault it’s too nice.
Less happily at the end there’s a toe curlingly cheesy cover of cringey John Miles hit ‘Music’ – a song that itself earnestly truckled into the charts and proved as whiffy as decent Pont-l’Évêque – in 1976. Suddenly becoming even more excitable the Germans go potty – the audience predictably lap it up.
Wolfgang Haffner photo: ACT on Bandcamp
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