KRAAN — Live (review)

KRAAN — Live album cover Live album · 1975 · Jazz Related Rock Buy this album from MMA partners
5/5 ·
Rokukai
I've been fishing around this website looking for stuff I'd heard and not heard and learning a ton. On hiatus from progressive rock, it didn't occur to me to look up Kraan, but I'm glad I did.

After a six year progressive diet I've come to the conclusion Kraan is my favorite band in the genre. I had a difficult time choosing which album to review first--Andy Nogger is my favorite progressive album, and one of my all time favorite albums. Kraan live is great, but the rousing energy and lengthy solos make it something of a saturday night jam record for me at my advancing age.

It just happens to be saturday and I'm listening to "Hello Ja Ja I Don't Know" for the first time in ages, what a glorious funky sound! Not featured on any of their studio albums, the song captures the spirit of this record perfectly--lengthy, propulsive improvisational jamming dominates here, and Kraan favorites "Nam Nam" "Holiday am Materhorn" and "Kraan Arabia" are the featured jams. These musicians play incredibly tight rock and roll that skirts with jazz (primarily in their improv skill and presence of an AWESOME electric sax courtesy of Johannes Pappert). The sax really adds a great color to many songs in the Kraan oevre, and Kraan Live! throws it down in spades. Nam Nam, wow. Have mercy.

One of my favorite live albums ever, the energy crackles in the room. Nobody's really cheering, it's like everybody's standing around with their mouths open gaping at the magic they're witnessing. Hellmut Hattler's bass really propels the songs, and his interplay with Peter Wolbrandt's guitar is sensational.

Then, on some songs, Pappert plays lead sax. This gives Kraan the edge over their contemporaries in the variety department. I can see how the Wolbrandt's snide vocals could turn a listener off, but they are hardly the showcase here, or on any Kraan tune for that matter.

Great rock from an awesomely underrated band. Many fans consider this their best work, although I prefer the shorter, Conny Plank engineered Andy Nogger. Hey, you can't go wrong with either, or almost any Kraan record from the early seventies for that matter. They're still churning out quality, genre-bending albums to this day.

I can't call it a masterpiece of jazz music, because it's really not jazz. Still, it's an alltime classic that should be remembered forever. I'm giving it the full five.
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