01	Silver Wings						04:13
	02	Mind Quake						07:43
	03	Backs						06:41
	04	Gut Und Richtig						07:35
	05	Wintrup						05:24
	06	Jack Steam						05:56
	07	Fat Mr. Rich						05:43

Kraan
Group Members Ingo Bischof Jan Fride Hellmut Hattler Johannes Alto Pappert Peter Wolfbrandt

This influential German band came together in the South German town of Ulm in 1967 with a meeting between teenagers Hellmut Hattler, Jan Wolbrandt, Jan Friede, and Johannes Pappert. All four had played in local jazz and rock bands, and they enjoyed jamming together on a casual basis. Though they originally played free jazz, they were influenced by Pharaoh Sanders and Frank Zappa and started working on tighter, more structured pieces. After playing on an amateur basis, they decided to get serious about music and moved to the small town of Wintrup, where they lived communally for almost five years. They managed to avoid any kind of steady work, preferring to devote their time to art and film projects and their increasingly tight and professional-sounding band. After considering the name Jack Steam, they named the band Kraan instead. (The name means faucet in Dutch, a fact they were apparently unaware of at the time. It means nothing in German but they liked it because it was easy to remember.) Their eponymous first album was hastily recorded in 1971, and in it the band fuses psychedelia and jazz. Arabic and Eastern European rhythms are integrated seamlessly with funk-rock, and the 18-minute improvisation that takes up half of the album does so without a wasted minute. The combination of soulful, complex instrumental pieces and excellent musicianship was successful, and the album received excellent reviews. 1972's Wintrup album showed some movement toward a jazz-funk sound, which accelerated on 1974's Andy Nogger. All featured exotic rhythms and complex interplay between Hattler's nimble bass and Wolbrandt's guitar, with Pappert's electronically altered alto sounding like almost anything but a saxophone on some cuts. Pappert's dynamic range was very wide and he was out in front on some tunes and nearly invisible on others. Each album also had some of Wolbrandt's odd vocalizing, which features impressionistic lyrics that are as much sung as spoken, growled, and yelped. Luckily, the vocal pieces are few and comparatively brief, so those who never acquired the taste for Wolbrandt's voice didn't have to listen to it for long. The band hit a high water mark in 1974 with the two-record Live album, which was recorded in Berlin by veteran engineer Conny Plank. Some of their early pieces were reinterpreted by the more confident and skilled band, and in all cases the result is an improvement. Hattler's bass was the lead instrument on many tracks, and his lightning runs and chord playing on this release are among the best of his career. The instrumental interplay was stellar and brought Kraan to the attention of a much larger audience. In 1975, the Sounds poll named Kraan the Best Live Act, Hellmut Hattler the Best Instrumentalist, and Kraan Live the Best Album. The band embarked on a heavy touring schedule to promote the record, taking with them new member Ingo Bischof on keyboards. Bischof was formerly of the symphonic rock band Karthago, and his keyboards weren't entirely integrated on their next release, the erratic Let It Out. While some cuts were excellent, others were marred by excessive electronic effects and one consists solely of almost five minutes of echoing chants over heavily processed keyboards. While this experimentalism was entirely in character with the band's earliest work, that was not what their current audience wanted to hear. Though some fans were inclined to give the new lineup a chance and the album sold well, the critics were devastating. The poor press demoralized the band and Bischof quit shortly after it was released. Six months later, Pappert left the band for a solo career, a serious development that left the group's future in doubt. Though the band continued without him, the dynamic was altered and they never regained the same level of energy and interplay. Bischof was back again by early 1977 for the recording of Wiederhoren, a low-key album that had moments of brilliance but marked a shift toward a sound that was softer and less intricately structured. He was also on board at the end of that year for the recording of Hattler's solo album, Bassball, as was the rest of the current lineup of Kraan. Though much of the material on that album was marred by Hattler's singing (he was an even worse vocalist than Wolbrandt), the instrumentals sound much more like the old Kraan, high energy, eccentric time signatures and all. This mystified fans as it proved that the band was still capable of sustained energy for side projects but apparently not on their own albums. Drummer Jan Friede left the band shortly after recording Hattler's album, to be replaced by Udo Dahmen. The new lineup sounded very little like the old band, with Bischof's keyboards dominating an increasingly conventional jazz-rock sound. In 1979, Kraan released Flyday, an interesting album that alienated many fans despite being good when measured on its own merits. Once again the keyboards dominated the mix and though all members showed instrumental virtuosity, the sound was more mellow than exciting. The band made a major mistake by following this with the live Tournee album, a competent but unexceptional affair that couldn't help but provoke comparisons to their previous, more exciting live work. Kraan's next album, 1982's Nachtfahrt, did nothing to restore their popularity. The band experimented with combinations of their usual sound with reggae, dub, new wave, and pop, with results that could easily be imagined as everyone found something to dislike. The band broke up, though a version of the group that included only Hattler and Bischof from the previous lineup recorded an album of unchallenging jazz the next year. Wolbrandt, Hattler, and Friede reunited shortly afterwards, added trumpeter Joo Kraus, and recorded a live album called Kraan 88. Competent but uninspired albums have followed since then, but none have recaptured the magic of the band's earlier work. Hattler released another solo album in 2000, No Eats Yes, and the whole band recorded another live album the same year that was released as Kraan 2001. - Richard Foss

1972 Kraan Spiegelei
1973 Wintrup
1975 Andy Nogger Gull
1975 Kraan Live Gull
1975 Let It Out Gull
1977 Wiederhoren Harvest
1978 Flyday Harvest
1980 Tournee [live] Harvest
1983 Schallplatten Boots
2000 Nachtfahrt Funfundvierzig


Kraan [Germany]
Kraan (72), Wintrup (72), Andy Nogger (74), Live (75), Let It Out (75), Wiederhoren (77), Flyday (78), Tournee (80), Nachtfahrt (82), Scallplatten (?)

An excellent seventies jazz/rock/spacemusic band. Two of their mid seventies works, Andy Nogger and one other were released through Jem in the USA. I think. Hellmut Hattler's bass playing is excellent, the guitarist is superb, and they have a sax player who I think at times uses effects pedals and wah wah and can even sound like a keyboard player sometimes. They added keys later on. First couple LPs were classic space rock, and then they got a very refined sound, very fun, funky rock with a really spacey feel. Later LPs added keyboards to the original guitar, bass, drums, sax lineup. I think the Live double LP really stands out as a high point in their releases. The two LPs that made it out in the US are good, but I think are weakened a little by the vocals. I'm inclined to almost compare them to Steely Dan because of their excellant musicianship and pristine production on the later works, but they don't really sound at all like Steely Dan. The later LPs tend to get more slick and faster and faster to a point of near technical over-indulgence.

Kraan is a primarily-instrumental outfit that blends the very best elements of fusion, funk, space and progressive - led by bassist extrordinaire Hellmut Hattler - into a unique style of their own. The early albums (through Let It Out) featured Johannes Pappert on sax, who did some pretty inventive stuff using special effects. With Let it Out they added a keyboardist and subsequently Pappert left, so the later albums have a slightly different feel. Most of their tracks are instrumentals, the few vocal tracks tend to be fairly eccentric. A good place to start is the Live album (a double LP on single CD) which contains the best material from the first three, or Let It Out.

Talk about "get the funk out!": I have Kraan's Live and have heard a little of Tournee. Live is a fantastic album that owes as much to jazz/funk as it does rock. There are two players that stand out immediately: Peter Wolfbrandt on guitar and Hellmut Hattler on bass. Wolfbrandt's guitar is clean, refined, and very tasteful, whether he's in a funk or rock groove. Hattler's bass is all OVER the place. He must have six fingers on each hand! Johannes Pappert is the sax player and he usually sounds like anything but a sax. At times I thought it was a violin and other times sounded more like a synth, just like Miles Davis during his mid-70's funk/fusion era. Jan Fride, the drummer, sets up a rock solid groove. It's really hard to imagine this is four piece music. On Tournee, the sax is replaced by a real set of keyboards and the drummer changed. The funk groove is still there but no so pronounced, while the fusion groove is enhanced, reminding me somewhat of Jeff Beck with the Jan Hammer Group. I don't know about the rest of their work, but these two are excellent.

Great space-rock/jazz-fusion mix. Led by the restless guitar and raucous rock vocals of Peter Wolbrandt, and featuring the monster bass playing of the bespectacled Helmut Hattler (he may be one of the top five bassists of all-time!), Kraan made a spacy jazz/prog type of music with some Middle-Eastern themes, yet retained true rock power. No keyboardist at this early stage, but alto-sax player Johannes Pappert often makes his instrument sound like a synth, violin, flute or oboe. This lineup reaches its peak on Andy Nogger, which is virtually swimming in crazy sound-effects. "Stars," "Holiday am Marterhorn," "Nam Nam" and "Yellow Bamboo" are all among the band's best song. The double Live album is a great introduction to the band if you can find it, including tracks not available anywhere else, and extended versions of "Nam Nam" and "Andy Nogger." Let It Out adds ex-Karthago keyboardist Ingo Bischof to the lineup, and starts to carry on toward more conventional fusion territory, but not too far. The American (Passport label) issue of this features several remixed tracks. Wiederhoeren treads further into straight fusion, but the amazing "Vollgas Ahoi" and the Caravan-like title track proves they can still jam with the best of them. Tournee is another live album. I heard some of a much later album, very conventional indeed, and not too interesting. -- Mike Ohman



KRAAN

Personnel:
PETER WOLBRANDT g
JOHANNES "ALTO" PAPPERT sax
INGO BISCHOF kb B
HELMUT HATTLER b
JAN FRIDE d

ALBUMS (up to '76):
(A)same (Spiegelei 9U 28778) 1972
(A)"Wintrup" (Spiegelei 9U 28523) 1973
(A)"Andy Nogger" (Spiegelei 26439) 1974
(A)"Live" (2 LP) (Spiegelei 8U 26440) 1975
(B)"Let It Out" (Spiegelei 1U 26542) 1975

The name Kraan was short, concise and meant absolutely nothing. Still the band was to become one of the most important and stylistically characteristic German jazz-rock bands of the seventies. Kraan was formed in Ulm (south of Stuttgart) in 1970. All members had their backgrounds in free jazz bands. Johannes "Alto" Pappert on his side had a passion for soul, but came to Kraan directly from a rock band. Their debut album was recorded in May 1972 and later released on Spiegelei in a colourful fold-out sleeve. It contained their basic live repertoire at the time (and also favourites for years to come) like: "Kraan Arabia" (a cunning jazz trip into Eastern music) "Sarah's Ritt Durch den Schwarzwald" and "Head" (an 18 minute long improvisation). A remarkable album, it was recorded in just three days at Studio 70, Munich. Instrumentally it was well-balanced between Pappert, Wolbrandt and the outstanding bass-work of Hattler, then just 20 years old but already a master of his instrument.

The two following albums, Wintrup (1973) and Andy Nogger (1974), were similar in style. They sold quite well, even gaining a release in the States. In those days, Kraan toured Germany a lot and were renowned for their great performances full of improvisations. The excitement of a Kraan concert was caught perfectly on Live (1975) - one of the best German live albums of all time! Improved versions of many of their old songs were included with extended solos. The album was recorded at Quartier Latin in Berlin in September 1974.

In 1975 Kraan made two tours in the United Kingdom and also appeared at the Danish Roskilde festival in July, now adding a fifth member: Ingo Bischof. He had previously been a member of Karthago. Let It Out (1975) proved to be a disappointment (for the band as well) and Bischof left at the end of the year. After one German tour and a third UK tour Pappert also left in August 1976 to go solo.