Wolfgang Dauner's Et Cetera - Et Cetera

1970 Germany

May 29, 2007. Edited on October 7, 2007.

Wolfgang Dauner was one of the true pioneers of the late 60s German jazz scene. And so he was a natural to experiment with rock’s energy and sounds and combine them with his vision of free jazz. I’d managed to obtain all of his rock based albums, except the Et Cetera debut (until now that is), mentioned by many as perhaps his finest work of them all. After a few listens, I’m inclined to agree, though I still have a slightly greater fondness for the “Rischkas Soul” album on Brain. The opening track features a driving staccato synthesized organ sound (somewhat akin to Supersister or Soft Machine) mixed with some freer jazz structures that can be a bit much in places. The next three tracks are Dauner at his best mixing an array of ethnic/world music (mainly Eastern) with some psychedelic rock and modal jazz. The album closes with a free jazz piece, which gets away from my personal tastes. So the opener and closer keep this from being a classic for me – but one that I still hold in high esteem. Et Cetera comes in a beautiful silver foil cover, and would be an awesome candidate for a Japanese mini-LP reissue.

With the album above, I now have all of Dauner's rock era albums, and will probably add a couple of more later on. Most certainly "Rischkas Soul" will be one of them. I don't have any notes from the other listens and will need to revisit.

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