Siggi Loch, the founder of Germany’s influential ACT label, turned 75 last month, and this five-disc compilation is an appropriately eclectic tribute to a jazz entrepreneur who has mixed the art-music adventurousness of his Munich neighbours ECM, an affection for mainstream jazz, and enduring enthusiasms for blues, rock and funk. Those who discovered ACT through the work of such contemporary jazz stars as the pianists Esbjörn Svensson and Gwilym Simcock, saxophonist Marius Neset or vocalist Solveig Slettahjell might recognise the tracks featuring those artists here; but the enterprising label boss’s early career reissues of music by jazz stars including Sidney Bechet and Dave Brubeck – and blues icons John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters and Buddy Guy – might surprise some ACT regulars. It’s Loch’s story as much as it is a story of postwar jazz as viewed from continental Europe, but its idiosyncratic variety makes this set a fine present for anyone beginning to dip a toe into jazz waters.
