“Flute Summit”
Commentary by Joachim Ernst Berendt
Did you know？
On the back of the October calendar from Donaueschingen Musiktage was an account in German and English on the Flute Summit. Here are some excerpts:
“Flute Summit” is what we called two concerts at the 1973 Donaueschingen Music Festival, where James Moody, Sahib Shihab, Jeremy Steig and Chris Hinze came together. As it turned out, the Flute Summit became one of the most successful concerts in the history of this famous avant-garde festival of concert music exciting not only the jazz audience, but also inspiring the many listening musicians, composers and specialists of concert music in their constant search for new sounds. This was what we tried to do at the Flute Summit: to present the richness and diversity of the flute sounds and flute combinations possible in jazz–a richness and diversity which by far surpasses anything known to date of “classical” flutist. Jeremy Steig’s palette of flute sounds alone (listen to his intro to “Duo Memnon” on the Album Tip below!–referring to “Flute Summit” Atlantic 50.027) is as complex and multi-colored as a whole woodwind (and occasionally even percussion) group…Within a few years’ time, flutists incorporated lip, tongue, nasal and key-noises, deliberately manipulated overtones and friction between them and played “chords”. In the beginning this was done only to “heat up” the intensity. Jeremy Steig was the first to integrated all the extra-musical sounds and noises and use them structurally and melodically…