Swiss drummer Lucas Niggli pays tribute to Irène Schweizer, to her unique role as “the encourager“ and remembers the astonishing flow and incisiveness of her playing… and her laugh.
“HA!”. Irene had a way of laughing which was short and to the point, and always seemed to have an exclamation mark attached to it. It still resonates in my ears. It was one of her many trademarks – in addition to her utterly unmistakable piano playing! Her laughter, her contributions at Intakt board meetings (Intakt was her ‘publishing home’) where we represented the musicians together for many years, were characterised by the outstanding clarity of her mind, something which can also be heard so captivatingly in her music.
(One of the craziest solo passages of her magnificent playing can be found in “Section 1” of “Theoria” with the London Jazz Composers Orchestras! Be sure to listen to it! What incisiveness, what flow!)
For me as a drummer, her series with the greatest drummers in improvised music is certainly worthy of a mention: Pierre Favre, Han Bennink, Baby Sommer, Hamid Drake, Joey Baron, Andrew Cyrille and Louis Moholo. They form a whole gallery of top sparring partners for the great “drummer” on the 88 keys that was Irène.
(I once had the honour of playing with her as a duo, an unforgettable evening in the old Moods jazz club, and in the piece “Radio Rondo”, which Barry Guy composed for her. We both appeared as guests with the London Jazz Composers Orchestra).
In addition to these utterly inspiring moments of her playing, I would like to emphasise her impact on us musicians who came a generation after the great pioneers like Irène and Pierre Favre.
Irene was very present in the Zurich scene – she would often come to concerts – even to hear us younger musicians, at the time when hardly anyone else had us on their radar, e.g. when I played with the pianist Sylvie Courvoisier in a duo at the WIM Zurich. Suddenly Irène and Pierre, our musical foster parents, were there, sitting in the audience. It was an incredible gesture of encouragement for us.
As a supportive musician who upheld values and principles, she was the “mother” for many of our generation, listened to us, played with us. There wasn’t a lot of criticising, there was nothing of the finger-wagging pedagogue about her, she simply exemplified improvisation with a prominent expression of attitude, courageous playing, staying power and wonderful momentum (swing!).
It was so encouraging for us to be able to gain a worldwide audience as musicians in a niche music genre with the benefit of hearing and absorbing her utterly individual voice. We learned through listening to your voice, listening, playing with risk ….and sometimes laughing out loud. HA!
Thank you, Irène!
This tribute is published today in German at WOZ
