Curt Cress - Clan, or CCC, or Curt Cress Clan was released in Germany in 1975 on Atlantic Records when he was twenty three years old. When this was released he was already a seasoned professional who'd been playing professionally since his early teens.
I managed to find a wonderfully pristine copy in a small shop in Vernon BC of all places. There's a story in there somewhere. I am not complaining. It was an album I was curious about, and while the back cover featured a picture of Curt it was a pretty generic shot, and really didn't give anything away. I was leaning hedging my bets and assumed it was going to be Krautrock, but honestly I really didn't (still don't) know what that means.
One of the bigger hints as to what lay ahead was the inclusion of fluegelhorn in the credits. I started thinking, fusion or some such thing. Which as it turns out is probably closer to the truth. Apparently Curt was still a member of the band Passport at the time, which was sort of the German equivalent to Weather Report. I'd heard of Weather Report mainly because so many musicians I had read about were alumni: Omar Hakim, Jaco Pastorius, Alex Acuna, Chester Thompson too mention a few.
Don't let my feeble attempts at name dropping give the impression I have any idea what I'm talking about when it comes to fusion, jazz fusion or whatever Curt Cress Clan put out. This was not in my wheelhouse, but I can appreciate it ... up to a point. Nuances are lost on me ... and frankly this all sort of sounds the same. It's all just notes in a blender to my ears. I do love smoothies, thank goodness for blenders.
This isn't a long album, and sadly I couldn't find it on out there to stream, which means that Curt Cress Clan has been marooned in that nether world of lost and forgotten records. The album opens with "Cyclone" which opens with a solo drum section that eventually morphs into a more coherent piece. This is probably the most drum centric composition on the album. The jacket lists eight songs, but there are nine. The second side has five songs, with "Movin' Right Along" being the one missing from the cover.
The band here is more than competent:
- Dave King on the bass, and man the guy could anchor a groove
- Volker Kriegel played guitar, and man he was clean
- Kristian Schultze provided the keys
- Ack van Rooyen brought the fluegelhorn to the party
While this isn't my go to kind of music, it was fun and honestly if I didn't know this was recorded in 1975 I wouldn't have known. Yeah some of the keyboard sounds and stuff are cheese dated, but the recording sounds really crisp.
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