The Flying Luttenbachers

All Music Guide:

A product of the fertile music scene centered around Chicago's Wicker Park area, the free jazz ensemble the Flying Luttenbachers was formed in 1990 by multi-instrumentalist Weasel Walter, a veteran of area punk bands whose love of the music of avant-saxophonist Hal Russell inspired him to form a jazz group of his own. Walter soon teamed with bassist Bill Pisarri and others to found the Sound Improvisation Collective, who on a flyer for their March 8, 1991, debut performance described themselves as "the eczema of dada, Ornette, no wave, Partch, punk, Ayler, Company, and Beefheart." After just one other performance, the group disbanded. That summer, Walter met his hero, Russell, and soon began taking sax lessons from him. Their rapport was instant, and in late 1991 they formed the Flying Luttenbachers with saxophonist Chad Organ.

A live date recorded at the Northwestern University radio station provided the material for the Luttenbachers' debut LP, Live at WNUR 2-6-92, issued on Walter's own ugEXPLODE label. However, Russell soon began focusing more and more of his attention on his other band, the NRG Ensemble; with a recording date imminent, Walter quickly replaced him with saxophonist Ken Vandermark, and without benefit of a single rehearsal date, the Luttenbachers cut the 546 Seconds of Noise EP in mid-1992. Russell died that following September, but the group forged on, in 1993 recording the 1389 Seconds of Noise EP, which heralded an increasing turn toward a so-called "punk-jazz" sound. Bassist Jeb Bishop joined soon after, followed a short time later by the addition of guitarist Dylan Posa; sessions for the Constructive Destruction album commenced in late 1993.

Vandermark exited the Luttenbachers in April 1994, although he briefly returned in order to record the LP Destroy All Music. An East Coast tour followed, but during the return trip, Walter announced he was dissolving the group, disgusted by the creative complacency of the other members. He recorded the next few Flying Luttenbachers singles as a solo act before recruiting his longtime pal, Bill Pisarri, and guitarist Chuck Falzone, a friend since back in kindergarten. As a trio, the group cut 1996's Revenge of the Flying Luttenbachers, followed later that year by Gods of Chaos, a conceptual work exploring the possible destruction of humanity. Retrospektiw III, a collection of out-of-print singles tracks and unreleased material, appeared in 1998. The Flying Luttenbachers, with an oft-changing lineup and Walter as the only constant, continued to release an album a year, including 1999's The Truth Is a Fucking Lie, 2002's Infection and Decline, 2004's The Void, and 2006's Cataclysm.

Wikipedia:

The Flying Luttenbachers were an instrumental unit led by multi-instrumentalist / composer / producer Weasel Walter. The Luttenbachers have created a large body of work focusing on an agenda of musical extremity and dissonance. Over the course of the band, the personnel has shifted numerous times around the artistic leadership of Walter, each line-up revealing a different part of the Flying Luttenbachers' aesthetic. The music has run a gamut from intense, all-acoustic free improvisation, to complex, modernistic rock composition; pure electronic noise to primitive punk-inspired jazz. The music defies idiomatic cliché and is steadfastly abstract, choosing to work outside of pre-existing genres in order to attain an original fusion. Walter has been quoted as drawing inspiration from the fields of hardcore punk, black metal, progressive rock, free jazz, no wave, electronic noise, contemporary classical, Balinese gamelan and Noh music.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

History[edit]

The Flying Luttenbachers formed in December 1991 in Chicago, Illinois as a punk jazz trio, with Hal Russell (tenor and soprano saxophones, trumpet), Chad Organ (tenor saxophone) and Weasel Walter (drums). The band derived their moniker from Russell's birthname, Harold Luttenbacher. Russell left the band in June 1992, and was soon replaced by Ken Vandermark for the recording of the Flying Luttenbachers' first 7" record.

The band has since featured a frequently shifting cast of notable free jazz and experimental rock musicians, including Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kurt Johnson, Jeb Bishop, Alex Perkolup, Mick Barr, Ed Rodriguez, Mike Green and Jonathan Hischke. The Flying Luttenbachers have toured Europe and the US extensively with bands like The Locust, Arab On Radar, Lightning Bolt, U.S. Maple, Erase Errata, Bobby Conn, and Wolf Eyes. Walter moved from Chicago to Oakland, California in 2003, beginning yet another incarnation of the group. The live band played their final concert in November 2006. The Flying Luttenbachers project officially ceased operation in November 2007 upon the release of a final studio album (recorded solo by Walter).Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Conceptual continuity[edit]

Since 1996’s Revenge album, the Flying Luttenbachers’ musical output has been underlined by a gradually unravelling storyline concerning the self-obliteration of the planet Earth and the resulting aftermath. The 2006 album Cataclysm concerns an interstellar battle between two monolithic entities: The Void (a dark, silent spectre detailed on 2004’s album of the same name) and The Iridescent Behemoth (a massive planetoid being whose tale was told on 2003’s complex Systems Emerge From Complete Disorder album). The music energetically utilizes deliberate harmonic dissonance and the material operates on a principle of intelligent transformation of concise amounts of interrelated themes.