In 1966 pianist and composer Misha Mengelberg and his loyal drummer Han Bennink were only a year away from the founding of the wanton avant-garde company ICP. It is all the more striking that on this album, recorded live in the Concertgebouw, they still play firmly rooted in traditional American jazz music. Mengelberg's early influences were Duke Ellington and Thelonious Monk and especially the
… influence of the latter pianist can be heard in his jerky atonal chords. This contrasts nicely with the flowing saxophone playing of Piet Noordijk. This Rotterdammer did not like avant-garde or free jazz and previously placed his playing in the bop traditions of Charlie Parker and Cannonball Adderley. It is precisely this friction between modernist Mengelberg and traditionalist Noordijk that makes Journey a special reflection of a concert that took place on Thursday 7 April in front of a well-filled Concertgebouw. With the American trumpet player Ted Curson as an extra guest, the quartet flies in all directions, but it continues to swing and it remains jazz. (MR)more
