The music on Bluebells takes full advantage of the wide range of improvisational opportunities offered by the quartet’s unique instrumentation. Screwbirds, the intense first track, finds Lauer, whose eponymous debut as a leader (CMP 39) won the Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (Germany’s Grammy) for jazz in 1990, and Alkier, a co-founder of the Vienna Art Orchestra, stating the theme over a bed of crackling drum beats and turbocharged tuba lines.

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