The Hans Fahling Quartet Hamburg Port of Call

Port of Call is amazingly only the second CD from established professional "Jazz Guitarist, Composer and Music Educator" Hans Fahling. Since returning from studying Jazz Theory and Improvisation with Scott Henderson at The Musicians' Institute in Los Angeles, a busy touring schedule has kept him out of the studio, but thankfully he has now found the time to complete this, his most ambitious composition to date.

Inspiration was sought from Patrick Haskett's paintings of Hamburg's industrial shipping sector. Stretching from the eastern borders of Hamburg and nestled in the arms of the Norder- and S der-Elbe it reaches out westwards to Finkenwerder, once the dual pulse of The Hanseatic League, a powerful continental trading partnership largely dominated by German merchants in the cities of L beck and Hamburg. Each original tune comments on a different aspect of life in the harbour; playing visual games amongst the ripples breaking on a dappled hull, or taking a moonlit stroll along the slumbering quay. Each piece has some individual comment to make, and yet taken as a whole, the compositional continuity juxtaposes the scenes skilfully presenting a frieze-commentary, Fahling's personal narrative of the life he sees in Haskett's work. What better when words cannot adequately interpret art. The packaging is excellent and includes the artwork for you to share whilst you listen.

The music is sublime, moving comfortably between bebop and uptempo guitar and brass-led quartet settings and reflective tone poems, where the guitar proves most expressive. Thoughtful comping and strong soloing gives Fahling the John McLaughlin sound from somewhere around 1967-1968, time spent recording with The Gordon Beck Quartet (Experiments With Pops), Jack Bruce (Things We Like) and Sandy Brown and his Gentlemen! Friends (Hair at its Hairiest). This will keep us happy until Fahling's third CD.