aquarian drum song |cs101

Den Aquarian Drum Song (cs 101) stimmt BJÖRN LÜCKER an, eine feste Größe in der Jazzszene Hamburgs, als Drummer von Eisenrot, The Most oder Tirx Trisonar, aber einer mit Lust auf mehr, etwa mit Ritmo Rubato, einem Projekt mit der Sopranistin Ge-Suk Yeo. Hier buchstabiert er ‚mehr’ wie M-e-e-r. Zwischen dem ‚Prologue in Light Blue’ und dem ‚Epilogue in Dark Blue’ der dreiteiligen Drum-Suite fühlt Lücker den Puls des ‚Sea of Sound’, tanzt mit den Wellen, begegnet
dem Sandmann, David und Goliath. Der Drummer nicht als Schießbudenfigur, vielmehr als Maler von Seestücken und Wellenklängen, der die Timpani pochen und die Cymbals flirren und rauschen lässt oder den Atem anhält, um freundliche Geister nicht zu stören. Dazu Visionen wie Panizzas Gelbe Kröte. Hmmm - Aaah… Rigobert Dittmann (Bad Alchemy)

An academically trained percussionist and composer, Lücker is a free-lance artist who has collaborated in the most disparate settings - jazz to rock, improvisation to fully fledged orchestras. His knowledge is well perceivable throughout “Aquarian drum song”, a three-movement composition which, apart from very few piano notes, was completely performed on drums, cymbals, timpani and percussion. I don’t possess the technical expertise needed to read a drum score (assuming that this piece was scored) or understand how many hours of practice or what level of skill development is necessary to execute this work. I can only suggest that it does sound composed, not improvised, and pretty linear in its components - even in the most agitated intersections, which do not abound. What’s also to be said is that listening to a long piece of similarly conceived and arranged music is demanding in terms of patience, especially because of a timbral palette which can’t certainly be defined as “wide”. Lücker seems rather interested in the structure of the “song”, not too much in colour (which is visible, but not as prominent as its rhythmical essence). Therefore, at times one is left with an impression of having witnessed the unfolding of a refined exercise more than a proper creation. Of course this is not the case, and the seriousness of the effort is not in discussion. Let’s just say that a bit of additional complexity and a little less duration would have helped to avoid the sense of flatness creeping out here and there. Massimo Ricci (Aquarian Drum Song)