**Edition of 200 copies. This is the seventh release in BeJazz reissue series of long-lost classics from the legendary vaults of FMP Records, presented in restored original packaging and newly remastered for optimal sound** Not unlike Globe Unity Orchestra and the Company ensembles led by Derek Bailey, Instant Composers Pool (I.C.P.) was one of the seminal large free-jazz bands to emerge on the global and European scenes during the 1960s. Founded in 1967 as a musicians co-op by iconic Dutch improvisors, Han Bennink, Willem Breuker, and Misha Mengelberg, the project rapidly became one of the central aggregators of avant-garde creativity in the Netherlands, expanding and contracting between smaller ensembles, a tentet, and full orchestra, often including the contributions of artists from other geographies, most consistently Peter Brötzmann.

Recorded live during the Workshop Freie Musik in Berlin during April of 1977, In Berlin is among Instant Composers Pool’s most iconic documents, featuring a Tentet comprised of John Tchicai, Gilius Van Bergeijk, Peter Bennink, Peter Brötzmann, Maarten Altena, Tristan Honsinger, Misha Mengelberg, Han Bennink, Michel Waisvisz, and Bert Koppelaar. Comprised of 12 individual compositions by a selection of the featured players, doubling as document and workshop, it quickly reveals why I.C.P. stood out from all the rest. It’s one of the few instances where free-jazz equally inspires the desire to laugh, as well as complete awe in the creativity unfolding before your ears.

A joyous explosion, splicing playful humour with rigorous creative exploration and freedom, In Berlin sounds like a circus exploding into a thousand pieces, where each fragment is joined in a wild and unpredictable dance. In a total structure where flirtations with woozy popular music give way to incredible improvisations where all the stops are pulled out, it’s hard to think of any equivalent for what is accomplished on these two sides. An absolutely thrilling, singular topsy-turvy world of its own, there’s no way to recommend this one enough. It rewrites nearly every known perception of free jazz in the 70s. We can’t thank Be! Jazz enough for bringing it back.