Austrian pianist-composer Friedrich Gulda (1930-2000) was celebrated as brilliant and criticized as an enfant terrible. + On the album’s title piece, “Donau So Blue” two seasoned jazz musicians, bassist Hans Rettenbacher and drummer Manfred Josel accompany Gulda. + His scurrilous texts – also featured on this somewhat bizarre spoken word MPS production – are reminiscent of the works of Viennese actor-cabarettist Helmut Qualtinger and Austrian-American cabarettist- composer Georg Kreisler. + And who was the singer Albert Golowin? + He was actually a pseudonym Gulda used for singing performances. + Gulda felt himself to be an outsider in the jazz world. + He was a renowned Mozart and Beethoven interpreter, but did not want to be tied down to the world of classical music. + His antipathy towards the concert establishment drove the piano virtuoso into the jazz scene. + He played with such greats as Dizzy Gillespie, Chick Corea, and Rolf Kühn.
