Humus -

Humus was a German jazz-rock band that made the 1976 album Offshore on Pläne. Twelve years later, saxist/bandleader Rüdiger Schulz resurrected the name for the self-pressed album Chess Music.

Members: Rüdiger Schulz (tenor saxophone, soprano saxophone), Otmar Desch (electric piano, synthesizer), Ede Brumund-Rüther (bass), Gernot Meyer (drums)

Background

Humus emerged in northern Germany as a rock-jazz quartet led by saxophonist Rüdiger Schulz, with keyboardist Otmar Desch, bassist Ede Brumund-Rüther, and drummer Gernot Meyer.

Schulz and Meyer already played together in the Rüdiger Schulz Quartett in 1970, when the group appeared alongside Udo Will and Theo Kierdorf on the JG Records compilation Remembering ’70.

Desch studied music and medicine in Münster, where he trained under composers Harry Höfer and Mauricio Kagel. He joined the Städtische Bühnen Münster as a ballet répétiteur and later composed stage music.

Humus played concerts across West Germany and reached the Dortmund label Pläne for an album, Offshore.

Discography:

Offshore (1976)
Chess Music (1988)

Sources

JG Records / Rüdiger Schulz Quartett. The archival discographical listing gives Rüdiger Schulz on tenor saxophone, Udo Will on vibes, Theo Kierdorf on bass, and Gernot Meyer on drums for “NightLaughing.” It identifies the performance with Remembering ’70 and dates the source concerts to Dortmund, Iserlohn, and Altena in 1970. A separate John Surman discography independently lists the Rüdiger Schulz Quartett on Remembering ’70 and confirms the same three recording cities. (Inconstant Sol; Galatabridge)
Otmar Desch — biographical account. Desch gives his birth year as 1942, composition studies with Harry Höfer and Mauricio Kagel, his 1960 start as ballet répétiteur in Münster, subsequent theater positions, the Otmar Desch Jazz Trio, nationwide Humus concerts, and the 1976 Offshore recording for Pläne in Dortmund. The page reproduces material supplied from Desch’s own site, making it the strongest biographical source I found. (DoctorsTalents)
Cantus Verlag — Desch curriculum vitae. Corroborates the Münster and Cologne music/medical studies, Höfer and Kagel training, Städtische Bühnen Münster employment, movement from classical appearances into jazz, his own modern-jazz trio, and Humus as a north German rock-jazz group. It also lists Offshore among his recordings for Pläne in Dortmund. (Cantus Verlag)
Album personnel. An independent collector transcription of the Offshore credits lists Schulz on tenor and soprano saxophones, Desch on electric piano and synthesizer, Brumund-Rüther on electric bass, and Meyer on drums; it also names Wolfgang Frickenhaus as engineer. I used it only to corroborate instrumentation, not as a source for biography. (Old Rock)