EMBRYO
3 INFOS:
1.:
Embryo are, without a doubt, Germany's most famous and influential ethno band. Their musical Journey through time and space has always been a link between all kinds of cultures. The band is accurately considered to be a pioneer of world music and a prime example for the successful fusion of a broad range of musical styles. "We hope to further our development by constantly confronting ourselves with other musical surroundings', explains Christian Burchard, the head of Embryo. The band released more than twenty records, each of them unique, each of them with a new, exciting approach. No other German band is as multi-cultural as the outfit from Munich.
Formed in the summer of 1969 by Christian Burchard, who previously had played organ in a rhythm 'n' blues band as well as vibraphone in a number of Jazz combos, the original line-up consisted of Edgar Hofmann on saxophone, Lothar Meid on bass, Jimmy Jackson [organ], Dieter Serfas (drums), Wolfgang Paap (drums), Ingo Schmidt (sax), and John Kelly (guitar). When the band started production work on their debut album "OPAL" in April 1970, however, the line-up had already changed. The music press found "Opal' to be an 'unconventional conglomerate of jazz, rock, blues and soul."
Characteristic trademark of Embryo was the steady flux of band members - at the last count, more than 300(!!!| musicians played in the band at some point. But this was no disadvantage: Every new constellation helped Embryo develop another face of their seemingly unlimited creativity.
In May 1972, the band accepted an invitation by the Goethe Institute and went on a four-week tour through Northern Africa and Portugal. The journey opened new musical horizons for the band. Burchard: "It was as if we had somehow arrived on a different planet. We did not understand a thing and realised only later that the people there have a completely different tonality and a different understanding of rhythm." 'That same summer, the band performed at the Olympic Games in Munich.
In the spring of 1973, saxophone player Charlie Mariano and guitarist Roman Bunka joined the band to record the album "We Keep On". Burchard was excited: "Just like us, Mariano wants influences and playing techniques of East Asian music to play a bigger role in our work.' Bunka became a steady member of the band who continued to perfect their rhythm-heavy, genre-crossing mixture of different styles. Before English singer Maria Archer joined Embryo In 1975, vocals had always been a bit under-represented but this would change now... at least for a while. Archer would only stay two years but she can be heard on the records "Embryo Live' (1976) and "Bad Heads And Bad Cats". The magazine Jazz Podium wrote that "In this line-up, they are showing their jazziest and most swinging side so far.'
In the mid-seventies, Embryo and rock band Checkpoint Charile set up the Independent record label Schneeball together. Schneeball tried to leave behind the established ways of distribution - records were sold through special shops, via mail order, or at concerts.
In September 1978, Embryo and their entourage - their wives/girlfriends, children, roadies and a film team of eight - set out in three busses for an eight-month tour through Asia. On their way back from Afghanistan, the convoy almost fell victim to the revolution in Tehran. The (mostly positive] experiences the band made during this journey were documented on the double album "Embryos Reise" and in the film "Vagabunden-Karawane", which premiered on German television In January 1981.
Following internal quarrels, Embryo split up In the autumn of 1980. Burchard continued under the old name, while band members Friedemann Josch (flute), Uwe MüIIrich [bass) and Michael Wehmeyer (drums] went on to form Embryos Dissidenten (the name later was reduced to Dissidenten). Inviting a vast number of guest musicians, the Dissidenten played a mixture of American funk, European rhythms and North African chants.
Burchard and Embryo continued to travel all four corners of the planet During a commemoration event for the victims of the massacre on Tiananmen Square In Beljing, they got to know Chinese artists and recorded music with them, as can be heard on "Ni Hau", Embryo's twenty-first album. They also made traditional Egyptian dances a part of their live show. Even today, two years away from a new millennium, they are still searching for new people, fresh Inspirations, and elements that will help bridge the differences between the people of the world. "The only professional band with more changes in the line-up than the Italian cabinet", joked the Rheinpfalz newspaper and simultaneously revealed the secret of the success behind this colourful formation. Burchard surely was right when he announced his ensemble as the "Embryo World Band featuring musicians from four continents" once again.
(Christoph Wagner in Folkroots)
2.:
The name Embryo conjures up the birth of a new trend in fusion. Originating in the exciting Munich scene from the late sixties, Embryo was actualty formed in 1969 by percus-sionist Christian Burchard who had previously been member of another seminal band, Amon Duul II, and who was cur-rently working with pianist Mal Waldron. Reminiscing about the spirit of the moment, Burchard declared: "(Amon Duul) had this three room apartment and were living with 15 people. They called me up and said: "Come on over! We're doing something new!", you know, l went there, and they said:
"We've burnt all of our jazz LP's -we have nothing to do with jazz", and they played me what was new (also for my ears at that time): Hendrix, Cream, Hapshash". Alongside other Underground musicians (many of them with a similar jazzy background), Burchard had the vision of a band with a very definite aim: "to work collectively, intuitively, and let the music evolve of its own".
The initial core of the band was made up by Burchard (drums, piano, percussion, vocals), Edgar Hofmann (sax, violin, vocats), Ralph Fisher (bass, organ, voice), ex Ten Years After member John Kelly (guitar, vocals), and several occa-sional collaborators. During their first period, stretching from 1969 to 1972, while going through constant changes of line-up, Embryo released three albums. The first of them, "Opal", is still considered their masterpiece. Featuring Lothar Meid on bass, "Opal" was released on the legendary Ohr Musik label (headmast of the progressive German rock of the moment), and featured an inventive, freaky sound with an intriguing jazzy twist. The band's follow-up was "Embryo's Rache" (1971), a surprising album which set the unique Embryo sound, "often dynamic and riffing, with ethnic touch-es and Edgar Hofmann's expressive sax, hypnotic and com-plex music". "Embryo's Rache" featured the political "Espagna Si, Franco Mo", a song that led to the cancellation of their planned 1972 Spanish tour due to pressure from the Fascist dictatorship then ruiing Spain. Over the next eight months Embryo recorded three albums, but two of them would not appear until much later, äs the band's current label, United Artists chose to release only their more "com-mercial" disk: "Father, Son, and Holy Ghosts", a record that showed a more Condensed and accesible style.
A key development in Embryo's history happened when veteran Saxophone player Charlie Mariano was introduced to the band. In Burchard's own words: "Charlie paid us a visit, stayed with us, and we had a jam. The musical communica-tion between us worked, so that äs a logical consequence we played concerts together... Of course it was a big surprise for us, because we thought Charlie Mariano was a size too big for us!". The addition of Mariano led to the release of "We Keep On" (1973) for the BASF label, a very fine album that showed Embryo in an unusual quartet format also featuring Burchard, Roman Bunka, and Dieter Miekautsch. "We Keep On" was the record that broke Embryo around the worid.
Their two following albums, "Surfin"' (1974) and "Bad Heads & Bad Cats" (1975), were fine recordings but a mite too commercial for Christian Burchard. Annoyed at what he saw äs their label's manipulating schemes, in 1976 he embarked on an extensive trip to India alongside the rest of the band. During several months, the Embryo crew travelled through the northern regions of this country, getting to know and experimenting with different local musicians. One of them was Bombay singer Shoba Gurtu, who collaborated in the recording of their following project, the controversial "Apo Calypso" (1977).
In 1978 Embryo embarked an ambitious touring performance and recording trip to the Middle East via Afghanistan and Pakistan to India. The trip lasted nearly two years and , was documented on hundreds of hours of tape. As a result of this journey, the band released "Embryo's Reise" (1979), a document on their experiences in Asia, a pioneering effort in the addition of ethnic elements into rock, and a sample of exciting live and studio recordings. After releasing the weird, worid music-inspired "Life!" (1980), the band kept wandering through Asia, the Middle East and Egypt. During 1980-1982, the Embryo tours featuring Indian musicians enjoyed tremendous success. Particularly renowned was the concert the band offered at the Opera Theatre in Beirut alongside the Yoruba Dun Dun ensemble. Amongst the albums from this period, the double LP "La Blama Sparozzi" (1982) particu-larly manages to capture the magical essence of their ethnic crossover.
After endless changes in their lineup, in 1984 Embryo recorded their first studio album in seven years: "Zack Gluck", an almost instrumental LP in which the old classic Embryo style is fused together with lots of new elements. Now touring Africa, the band became deeply involved with Nigeria's Yoruba Dun Dun Ensemble. As product of their col-laboration with this African orchestra, Embryo released two intriguing albums: "Yoruba Dun Dun Orchestra" (1985) and "Africa" (1985). Celebrating twenty years of Embryo, "Turn Peace" (1989) offered additional surprises, proving that Burchard and crew were still willing to try new ideas while still recreating the music they originally set out with. "Ibn Battuta" (1994) stepped back to the elements in "Zack Gluck", but with a much more spacey ethnic feel. Embryo is still going on strong, constantly surprising with their innova-tions, proving to be the only Krautrock band to have stuck to their ideals over 25 years whilst always moving on.
(„the crack in the cosmic egg.“Encylopedia of..progressive, experimental & electronic musics from Germany by Steven & Alan Freeman)
3.:
"Embryo" is not just another band - Embryo is a trademark for worid music, a project that has been golng on for a quarter of a Century. This ts how long the band's Inner core around Christian Burchard has been working together while a stream of new musicians gathers around tbem, bringing their influences from Africa, Asia or Arabian countnes with them", wrote the Süddeutsche Zeitung in December 1995. These words perfectiy characterise the lifework of the Munich-based pioneers in ethno music. Burchard rightly announced his ensemble as "The Embryo World Band feat, musicians from four continents" that same year. Embryo are regarded äs a musical link between very different cultures, a forerunner of the so-called world music. Christian Burchard played organ in a rhythm 'n' blues band, and vibraphone in a number of jazz combos before he formed Embryo in the summer of 1969 to make "music by intelligent and quatified musicians for intelligent and complicated people", as he put it. The first line-up consisted of Burchard, Edgar Hofmann (saxophone), Lothar Meid (bass), Jimmy Jackson (organ), Dieter Serfas (drums), Wolfgang Paap (drums), Ingo Schmidt (Saxophone) and John Kelly (guitar). But when the band recorded their first album, 'Opal', in April 1970, the line-up had already changed again. Right from the start, Embryo presented themselves as a band given to experimentation. Apart from jazz, rock, soul, blues, and fusion, they always kept an open mind for cross-cultural ele-ments. In spite of the numerous changes in line-up, the constant comings and goings did not have any negative effects on the quality of the music - on the contrary. With every new constel-lation, Embryo tapped another facet of their seemingly unlimited supply of creativity.
In May 1972, the band accepted an invitation by the Goethe Institute and went on a four-week tour through Northem Africa and Portugal. The tour almost had to be cancelled because of the musicians' length of hair! The border officials insisted the band visit a coiffeur but even the ambassador who was called in to mediate was unable to talk Burchard and his friends into having their hair cut. The musicians finally got it their own (long-haired) way and were rewarded with completely new experiences in Africa. Burchard: "It was as if we had arrived on a different planet. We did not understand anything and realised only later that the people there nave a different tonality and a different understanding of rhythm." On their 1973 album 'We keep on', Embryo welcomed the saxophone-player Charlie Mariano to the band. That same year, guitarist Roman Bunka joined Embryo and became one of the leading figures of the band. Surely one of the most important experiences was the Asian tour that lasted eight months. In September, 1978, the musicians, their wives, girlfriends and children, roadies and a film team of eight all crowded into three busses and started their journey. On their way back from Afghanistan the convoy almost feil victim to the revolution taking place in Tehran when Embryo and their Company were stopped on an arterial road by an armed force. As Burchard remembers: "Some guys waved their weapons around. They were so nervous they kept dropping their magazines." The (mostly positive) experiences the band made during this journey were documented on the double album 'Embryos Reise' and in the film 'Vagabunden-Karawane', which premiered on German television in January 1981. The history of Embryo is firmly connected with the foundation of the independent record label Schneeball, a project initiated by members of Embryo and the band "Checkpoint Charlie" in the middle of the seventies. The goal of Schneeball was and is to get away from recording labels with commercial goals and sell records through special record shops, by mail order or during concerts. Even though the quickly turning carousel of musicians - more than 400(!) musicians have played in this collective - brought a lot of fresh wind with it, personal and artistic differences were unavoidable. In autumn 1980, Embryo split up. Burchard continued under the old name, while Friedemann Josch (flute), Uwe MüIIrich (bass) and Michael Wehmeyer (drums) formed a new band called Embryos Dissidenten - later they changed their name to Dissidenten - and played a melange of American funk, European rhythms and North African chants. During the nineties, Burchard and his band Embryo continued to travel all comers of this globe, always looking for new encounters, fresh inspirations, and elements that might help unite the people of this world. The band has released more than twenty albums over the course of its career and each of them was unique, each of them with a new and thrilling approach. For no other German band, the label "multicultural" is as appropriate, as for Embryo.
(from Klaus Unland`s Embryo homepage)