Irène Schweizer

Pianist Irène Schweizer (born 1941) has been at the forefront of European free jazz since the 1960s. She was initially self-taught on piano, but had a few years of classical training while at school. She was interested in jazz from the beginning, and also taught herself to play drums as a teenager. In 1961 Schweizer travelled to England as an au pair, and had the opportunity to study jazz piano with blind pianist Eddie Thompson. Back in Switzerland she started a trio with bassist Uli Trepte and drummer Mani Neumeier, becoming interested in free jazz, through hearing Ornette Coleman on record and live shows at Zurich’s African Club, where Dollar Brand (later Abdullah Ibrahim) had a residency. Schweizer’s trio was involved in an early experiment in Indo-jazz fusion in 1967 Jazz Meets India with trumpeter Manfred Schoof, Diwan Motihar on sitar and vocals, Keshay Sathe on tabla, Kusum Thakur on tambrua and saxophonist Barney Wilen.

She formed a new trio in 1968 with German bass player Peter Kowald, and Swiss drummer Pierre Favre, who would become one of her most enduring collaborators. The trio also recorded as a quartet with the addition of Evan Parker on saxophone. She was involved in another of Schoof’s experimental sessions in 1969, a half hour big band free improvisation for German radio, later released as European Echoes. The band included multiple pianists (including Schweizer and Alexander von Schlippenbach, multiple drummers (including Han Bennink), as well as Derek Bailey, Evan Parker, Paul Rutherford and Peter Brötzmann.

Schweizer released her first solo album Wilde Señoritas in 1976, released on the German FMP label. She also release two strong trio albums with with Rüdiger Carl and Louis Moholo – Messer (1975) and Tuned Boots (1977). From 1978, she became involved in the Feminist Improvising Group (FIG), whose members including Scottish vocalist Maggie Nichols, bassoonist Lindsay Cooper and singer-saxophonist Sally Potter (later an award-winning film director), which continued from 1983 as the European Womens Improvising Group (EWIG). As a keen amateur drummer herself, Schweizer has always been drawn to working with great improvising drummers, and from 1986 she began a series of piano-drum duo albums on the new Swiss label Intakt, which was partly created to better document Schweizer’s work. The drummers involved were all leading exponents of free jazz – Andrew Cyrille, Pierre Favre, Han Bennink, Louis Moholo, Mani Neumier and Günter Sommer. She worked with the American avant garde trombonist George Lewis in 1988, and with fellow pianist Marilyn Crispell for a piano duo album in 1990. In 1993, Schweizer reunited with two FIG/EWIG members, Maggie Nichols and Joelle Leandre in 1993 for the albums Les Diaboliques and Splitting Image. She continues to tour and record throughout Europe, but is certainly worthy of wider attention.

Key Recordings:
Jazz Meets India (SABA 1967)
Tuned Boots (FMP 1978)
The Storming of the Winter Palace (Intakt 2000) recorded with George Lewis and Maggie Nichols in 1988