Yochk'o Seffer's third album 'Mestari' with his early seventies New-Music / modern-jazz ensemble PERCEPTION has been released on CD. It is a live recording taken from a small club in Paris on the 28th November 1973. The pan-European line-up was the Hungarian Seffer on sopranino sax and tenor sax; with piccolo, bass clarinet and his own invention the 'malabar'. French percussionist Jean-My Truong was also working with Seffer in the rockier ZAO line-up at this time. When ZAO eventually split up, Truong was the original drummer with Seffer's next project NEFFESH-MUSIC. The German electric pianist Siegfried Kessler also plays clavinet and thirteen years later rejoined Yochk'o for their 'Dialogue' album. Didier Levallet on double bass went on to be a central figure in the French jazz scene, promoting the French tradition of strings in jazz-rock with CONFLUENCE in 1975 and ever since with his medium size string band SWING STRINGS SYSTEM (formed in 1979 and originally featuring Didier Lockwood) or in a trio with the violinist Dominiqe Pifarely. After recording 'Dialogue: Water-Fire' with Seffer, Levallet joined some of the most inventive improvisers in French jazz to form ZHIVARO
Seffer's first piece on the 'Mestari' album is a sensuous number called 'Trabla Air' in which he previews brief passages that he would later turn into full blown solos when performing live with NEFFESH-MUSIC. Kessler wrote the next track 'Chott Djerid' as a vehicle for the live PERCEPTION to stretch out, creating a dense forest of sound, exhibiting their remarkable talents. The title track however is a composition by Levallet, this weaves and un-weaves in an infinity of configurations. Sensual, light or grave, the lines intertwine from collusion to fruitful conflict, from sweetness to harshness in a style reminiscent of ZAO. The tension builds, each musical moment feeds on exacting interactions, on collusive signs apt to carry things away ever further... until the listener comes to a stirring final solo by Yochk'o, then silence....
Perception: The force of Zao, the freedom of flight.