McPhee/Brötzmann/Kessler/Zerang

The Damage Is Done: The Whole Session
Not Two MW 823-2

Mellow is not the first word you associate with German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann. And on the evidence of this live, fire-breathing two-CD set, the sedate blandness that many associate with getting older don’t seems to affected Brötzmann as he hones in on his 70th birthday.

Listening to the energy and inventiveness displayed by the players on this six-track set recorded in a Krakow, the Steve Lacy adage that “Free Jazz keeps you young” is proven one again. Besides the Wuppertal-based saxophonist, who expresses himself fortissimo and often staccatissimo on alto and tenor saxophone, tarogato and Bb clarinet, are the mercurial styling of Upstate New York’s Joe McPhee, who divides his talents between pocket trumpet and alto saxophone – and who is now also in his 70th year. Chicago’s bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Michael Zerang who are either side of the half-century mark almost struggle to keep up. Like one of John Coltrane’s marathon live recordings, these two sets from the Alchemia club capture every note played on that night. Courtesy of Brötzmann, the output is scarcely minimalist. Yet the commitment and skills of the four are as evident as the final notes fade as they are in the first notes of the mammoth – 30½-minute – first and title track.

Chameleon-like in these circumstances, McPhee is able to invest both his brass and reed work with identifiable textures that don’t suggest one another – even if he’s playing both on the same tune. On “With Charon” for instance, his barking, squeezed brass timbres coupled with Brötzmann’s full-bore honking tenor saxophone, suggest that this could be an undiscovered track by the Ayler brothers. Instructively, though, Kessler’s upfront and percussive bass pacing and the way Zerang works his way around the kit confirms that the 21st Century has arrived. Until the concluding interlude of moderato and allegro lines from both horns which only announce completion with spiking spits from the trumpeter and pinched ratcheting from the saxophone, Zerang and Brötzmann play cat-and-mouse for most of preceding 15 minutes. With the saxman squealing, shrieking and slurring with a pitch-sliding and a floor-shaking vibrato, the percussionist uses sticks and mallets to plink and pop his drum tops, spank and strokes his cymbals and unleash a few press rolls before reaching a broken-octave concordance with Brötzmann.

These ruffs, pats and cymbal snaps are also on show on “A Temporary Trip”, where they moderato Brötzmann’s woody tarogato tones that eventually spike from contralto pumps to wire-thin pierces. Meantime McPhee’s seconding saxophone trills and Kessler’s sul tasto string rubs fill in any spaces left untouched by Brötzmann. Even when McPhee’s moderates his reed tone, the other reedist’s timbres remain super-fast and staccato, as do the bassist’s circular spicatto thumps. Shuffle-bowing in a final variant, Kessler’s strings provide the prelude to the finale of double altissimo squeaks, which fade into woody resonation.

Boiling acceleration characterizes the title track with each musician braying, honking, thumping and banging, using the most extreme parts of his instrument’s range. Even so, as would be expected, the improvising of Brötzmann stands out. Reaching a peak of spluttering fervor he comes across like a Holy Roller in full flight, mixing glossolalia with inflating diaphragm trills; his contrapuntal vibrations moving upwards, while remaining constantly presto and staccato. With McPhee’s trumpet triplets matching his ascent and Zerang laying into his cymbals with mallets, only Kessler’s adagio stroking prevents the piece from blasting off – and all that takes place only during the improvisation’s first 10 minutes. From then on whenever the German saxophonist’s concentrated yowls and ratcheting split tones threaten to explode into inchoate formlessness, it’s either Kessler’s sul ponticello string swabbing or McPhee’s moderated alto saxophone lines which create the harmonic rapprochement. Eventually tongue slaps and slurs from both reedists turn tonic, with the remaining over-blowing sounding more like melody decorations than lunatic excursions.

Nevertheless the question remains: what do Brötzmann and company mean by titling that track – and the session – “The Damage Is Done”? Do they mean physical damages to eardrums or to the psyche are the result of the music? Do they means that bourgeois complacency is still constantly being attacked by the music? Or is it that once the openness of Free Jazz playing which Brötzmann and McPhee have been promulgating for 40-odd years has been expressed, going back to conventional music – Jazz or otherwise – is unnecessary and impossible?

These discs may suggest other answers, as well as providing an exceptional listening experience for the brain, heart and gut.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD 1: 1. The Damage is Done 2. Alchemia Souls CD 2: 3. A Temporary Trip 4. With Charon 5. On the Acheron 6. Into the Hades

Personnel: Joe McPhee (trumpet and alto saxophone); Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, tarogato and Bb clarinet); Kent Kessler (bass) and Michael Zerang (drums)

August 12, 2010

Zlatko Kaučič

Koncerti ob 30-letnici/30th Anniversary Concerts
Splasc (H) Records CDH 2525.2/CDH 2526.2/CDH 2527.2

For slightly less than two decades, percussionist Zlatko Kaučič has made his home back in his native Slovenia and in the process intensified the connections of the country’s somewhat isolated improvised musicians with their peers from other parts of the world.

Because his musical odyssey during the preceding 15 years took him to Spain, Portugal, Switzerland and the Netherlands, Kaučič now has the status of both a musical ambassador for his country as well as someone connecting Slovenia’s traditional and modern sounds with contemporary music. This three-CD set, commemorating his 30 years as a professional was recorded at three different local festivals. It’s instructive as well as inventive, for each CD finds Kaučič playing with different partners.

Although his expatriate gigging found him with players as different as pianists Tete Montoliu and Burton Greene, trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, and saxophonist Steve Lacy, the drummer comes from the Goriška brda region, abutting Italy. Thus it’s no shock that the majority of his confreres here are Italian, by birth – bassists Giovani Maier on Doline, also a member of the Italian Instabile Orchestra, and Salvatore Maiore on Slakoper – or by adoption, Argentinean-Italian soprano and baritone saxophonist Javier Girotto, also on Slakoper. What is surprising is his choice of other collaborators. Swiss vocalist Saadet Türköz – who not only improvises, but also adapts Kazakh and Turkish techniques and melodies in an original fashion – joins Kaučič and Maier on Doline. Even more unusual, Tolminski Punt 2 is created by a trio of the percussionist, Free Jazz avatar, German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and local opera baritone Robert Vrčon.

How do the performances work out? – With a mixture of atypically and professionalism. Sometimes the transitions are a little forced, but overall the experiments succeed on individual merits.

Take the six tracks on Slakoper for instance. The most mainstream – in this context – of the three discs, it’s mostly propelled by Girotto’s mercurial examination of every tone he can squeeze from soprano saxophone. He treats most of the originals as sardonic ballads, approaching the compositions the way Sonny Rollins or Archie Shepp would, trying to retain the tunes’ heart, but tweaking them enough so they don’t slide into syrupiness. To this end he’s aided by Kaučič’s timbral rattles and miniature bell pinging as well as Maiore’s bass slaps.

Everything turns around on the 18½-minute, completely improvised “Meeting of Rhinos” however. Growling from his baritone saxophone, Girotto not only produces gutty, funky vamps, but also spits and rumbles enough aleatoric timbres that he exposes more than one contrasting line at the same time. Meanwhile Maiore responds with jagged string jerks and Kaučič with backbeat bumps. Staying staccato in his output, while dipping southwards occasionally for an earth-shattering honk, the reedman appears determined to work out variation upon variation of every note pattern.

Suspended in effortless swing, “Meeting of Rhinos” encompasses guitar-like twangs from the bassist, plus ruffs, heavy snare rebounds and sandpaper-like ratchets on other drums from the percussionist. The saxophonist thickens the performance by punctuating his solo with Afro-Cuban styled verbal “umphs”. Penultimate variations find Girotto re-introducing his soprano sax for some fluttering glissandi with a vibrato wide enough to enfold a rhino, and Kaučič pitching the finale into an almost danceable beat with cymbal smacks and snare rolls.

One woodwind player who never winnows his tone is Brötzmann. Yet his nephritic yowls and pressured tone miraculously fit alongside the Slovenian song-poetry intoned by Vrčon which is often dispassionately accompanied by light bell-tapping, rim shaking and un-lathed cymbal rattling from Kaučič. Naturally, as expected, the classically trained singer has to marshal all his vocal power and techniques on a tune such as “Gori poezija” to declaim the defiant lyrics, especially when up against the saxophonist’s fortissimo power and reed-biting. Challenged, Vrčon seems not to break into sweat. Alongside this, Kaučič provides ratamacues, raps and flams, moderating Brötzmann’s sibilant note tosses and pluralized horn shakes. The finale ricochets between spittle-encrusted note clusters from the saxman and conclusive press rolls from the drummer.

Brötzmann’s repertoire of strident ghost notes in double tongued pitches plus screams and honks, reach both a climax and an unexpected detour when the three musicians tackle “Destrukcije”. Reflecting this “destruction”, the reedist is suitably bellicose, while Vrčon’s parlando is similarly harsh and repetitive. Each syllable sounds direr than the previous one and the baritone’s poetic recitation becomes more theatrical by the minute. Following Kaučič’s introduction of double-time martial beats, which are more brutal and rigid than elsewhere, his flailing equals Brötzmann’s lung-scrapping torrents of sound. Then something remarkable transpires. The fierce saxophonist changes tacks and become almost lyrical. Suddenly it sounds as if Brötzmann is blowing a fairly straightforward version of “East of the Sun” – or is it “My One and Only Love”? Ending in triple counterpoint, Kaučič smacks muscular patterns, Brötzmann snorts in a nephritic fashion, and Vrčon mouths a final “rušiti” or “destroy”.

Istanbul-born, Zürich-based vocalist Türköz’s collaboration with Kaučič and bassist Maier on Doline evolves in a fashion analogous to the rhythm section’s interaction with the other “voices” on the companion CDs. With a combination of autodidactic and trained technique, she’s a match for Vrčon on those tunes which have lyrics. At the same time her vocal melisma, hocketing and glossolalia means that she can improvise non-verbally and in microtones – the equivalent of Girotto’s or Brötzmann’s advanced reed playing.

For instance her onomatopoeia is most pronounced on the title track, when she plumps, gashes and warbles repetitive syllables. The effect is not unlike that of a deathbed lament by a grieving Baltic widow, a concept amplified by Kaučič’s resonations on metalphones, un-lathed cymbals and temple bells. Keeping up the shamanist atmosphere “Birds Live”, which fades into “Ziva-va-mai”, begins with snatches of wild bird songs and ends with percussive drum strokes and walking bass. In between that, Türköz, who has collaborated with players as different as saxophonist Hans Koch and bassist Joëlle Léandre, evokes a mood of primitive surrealism with baritone-pitched tessitura and witch cackles, as the bassist sweeps his strings. Elsewhere her deconstructed syllables and repetitive phrases plus chesty rasps and moist yelps meld perfectly with the non-singing musicians’ strategies. Cross textures from the other two encompass tremolo multiphonics from the bassist’s string set, and the percussionist’s ratcheting, side bounces and clattering rim shots.

Climax of the collaboration is a treatment of “Seminole-Life in the Countryside”. Described as a traditional Turkish song which begins like a tender lullaby, at its conclusion it probably wouldn’t be recognized by most locals near the Black Sea or in the mountains. Theatrical and declarative, Türköz’s exposition includes murmurs, soaring bel canto asides and section where she could be strangling. Meantime Maier vibrates the odd note and Kaučič minimally scrapes a frame drum and rings a bell. Climax of the development occurs with a summation encompassing sul tasto bass string sweeps, bell-tree shaking and toughened parlando which includes growls and muttering – not to mention the affiliated overtones expressed from each.

Vivid and vibrant in his musicianship, Kaučič’s versatility is highlighted on this notable 30th Anniversary salute. Thing is only three of his many formation and formulation are on tap. There are many more.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: CD 1 – Slakoper: 1. Slakoper 2. Reflettiva 3. Pampa Kids 4. Inmigracion 5. Meeting Of Rhinos 6. Mathias CD 2 – Doline: 1. Birds Live 2. Ziva-va-mai 3. Dance with Unknown 4. Doline 5. Denis nektar 6. Paslus ego tripr 7. Hara mai 8. Moon Looks At You 9. Samanyolu-Life in the Countryside CD 3 - Tolminski Punt 2: 1. Usedlina 2. Noc 3. Gori poezija 4. Destrukcije

Personnel: CD 1 – Slakoper: Javier Girotto (soprano and baritone saxophones); Salvatore Maiore (bass) and Zlatko Kaučič (drums and percussion) CD 2 – Doline: Giovani Maier (bass); Zlatko Kaučič (ground drums and percussion) and Saadet Türköz (voice) CD 3 - Tolminski Punt 2: Peter Brötzmann (tenor and alto saxophones, clarinet and bass clarinet); Zlatko Kaučič (drum and percussion) and Robert Vrčon (baritone voice)

July 28, 2010

Densités Festival

Fresnes-en-Woëvre, France
October 23 to 25 2009

A rural French hamlet in the Lorraine countryside isn’t the setting you imagine for a world-class festival of unadulterated Electronic and Free Music. Yet the Densités Festival in Fresnes-en-Woëvre – population 500 – about 80 kilometres from Nancy, is that. During three days in late October, the 16th Edition presented a sonic banquet of unstoppable Free Jazz, minimalist improv, sound installations, electro-acoustic meetings, poetry recitations and interactions between instrumentalists and dancers.

Equally fascinating were the duets between American bassist Barre Phillips and French dancer Emmanuelle Pépin opening night and French saxophonist Eddy Kowalski and the body movements of Alain Sallet the next. Both performances used wooden chairs as props, but while Kowalski rested in his to comment on Sallet’s elasticized movements, Phillips-Pépin were more proactive.

With the chair serving variously as body support, dance partner and booty to be used and or withdrawn from one by the other, Pépin also balances on it or swept the chair in circles – that is when she isn’t miming anger or marching robotically stiff-legged mocking the bassist’s sul ponticello squeals. For his part Phillips sometimes strums his four-strings guitar-like, scrapes the strings on the neck near the scroll while mumbling or yodeling. He seems to spend more time brushing the stage with his bow, dragging the bull fiddle across the floor or pulling sounds from the bass’s back and belly than sounding the strings.

On the other hand, except when Kowalski resonates his sax notes parallel to the ground or sticks the bell upwards, he doesn’t subvert his sonic role. He confines himself to simple pinched vibrato trills or propelled pure air through the horn’s body tube. In contrast, Sallet is in perpetual motion; at points crawling crab-like on his hands and knees, at others repeatedly leaping and grasping for something unseen; other times throwing himself down and up from the ground like a rag doll. Wobbling on bandy legs or exposing a hollow-legged gait with arms askew, Sallet suddenly pauses to pant dog-like, cough, retch, gasp, or, in response to a spiraling atonal line from Kowalski, dance a solitary tango. Finally as the saxophone whistles altissimo, Sallet leans backwards, slithering along the floor.

This sort of cross-platform improvising was expressed differently in two electro-acoustic meetings; one with German synth-manipulator Thomas Lehn, Austrian trumpeter Franz Hautzinger and French saxophonist Bertrand Gauguet; the other a Gallic admixture of Sophie Agnel’s prepared piano plus the electronics of Lionel Marchetti and Jérôme Noetinger. The later trio’s extended improvisation balances on sped-up and decelerated ostinatos from Noetinger’s electronics, which infrequently accelerate shrilly to interrupt the pianist’s lyricism. Prepared with plastic drinking glasses and rubber balls, the strings on Agnel’s piano echo smacked and stopped arpeggios, knife-blade scrapes and resounding wooden clanks. When he wasn’t recording piano sounds to play back in real-time unison with Agnel’s improvising, Marchetti manipulates a tape-wrapped, telephone extension among his equipment as if he’s a doctor using a stethoscope to probe a patient. In the performance, electronic loops, and flanges eventually give way to Agnel’s march tempo, Marchetti short wave-styled static and Noetinger rumbling what could have been a primitive blues tune.

Reversing the number of plugged-in and hand-held sound sources, Gauguet/Lehn/Hautzinger’s interface sounds no more or less acoustic than Agnel/Marchetti/Noetinger’s. However Lehn’s rumbling vibrations, quivering wave forms and occasional ring modulator-like clangs steady the improvisations, as Hautzinger complements the saxophonist’s unaccented puffs. Circumscribing his soprano saxophone in the air, Gauguet produces high-pitched reed bites as Hautzinger’s horn yelps and barks and Lehn burbles sound waves swollen to chunky vamps. Eventually the keyboardist’s jabs simmer unhurriedly as the horns’ double counterpoint dissolve into multi-syllabic, tremolo runs from the trumpeter and overblowing peeps from the saxophonist. Sonic equanimity is achieved when Gauguet’s over-extended rubato runs are superseded by pinging crackles and wiggling oscillations from the synthesizer.

Mostly unplugged connective voltage was on display via the Hairy Bones quartet of German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, the trumpet and electronics of Japan’s Toshinori Kondo, Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love and Italian electric bassist Massimo Pupillo. Operating full blast, the reedist’s floor-shaking bawling and nephritic split tones are hypnotically matched by the trumpeter’s screeching tremolo pitches, the bass guitarist’s grinding flanges plus the drummer’s clobbering back beat that impresses head-bangers.

This wall of sound is occasionally breached when Kondo uses foot-pedal action to extend his triplet overtones or during Brötzmann’s unaccompanied breaks, where the sounds seemed to issue as much from his solar plexus and stomach limning as his lungs. During its Sunday afternoon set the quartet divides into duos or trios without slacking its sonic wallop. For instance, Pupillo’s thick strums match Nilssen-Love continuous stroking; Brötzmann’s altissimo cries face off with the rhythm section’s relentless beat; or Kondo’s pitched squeals join bent saxophone note for a balladic approximation. Smears, scrapes, rubs and trills shrilly echo during the set’s climatic moments, almost literally shaking the stage before concluding.

No stages are shaken during the festival’s other outstanding acoustic set a day pervious. Trumpeter Birgit Ulher from Hamburg and alto saxophonist Heddy Boubaker from Toulouse push foreshortened air current through their respective instruments, frequently pianissimo, but often studded with key percussion, tongue slaps and reed cries. Boubaker, who at times plays his horn at a 180 degree angle, also places his mouthpiece perpendicularly, the better to expel wide expanses of pure air. Ulher amplifies some of her mutes through a small radio, but the resulting splintered timbres and watery slurps don’t alter the minimalist note construction. Rewarding attentive listening, the two expose the partials and extensions of many notes with their laser-focused improvising.

More spectacular, but as dedicated to wringing the least obvious textures from his instrument(s) is Australian percussionist Robbie Avenaim. Theatrical in presentation, his solo set Saturday evening finds him seated behind a regular drum kit surrounded by four additional bass drums, three extra snares plus another drum stick hanging from a stand designed to strike the cymbals and snares beneath it. Using a motorized voltage controller, Avenaim programmed the auxiliary percussion to play a pre-determined rhythm, follow his live strokes or create random beats. Strokes, volume and tempi varied; while his soloing concentrates on rim shots, sizzle cymbal tonality, drum-top patterning and abrasive whacks on the drums’ unyielding sides.

Sonic inventiveness extends to a spatial installation, as Berlin’s Burkard Beins demonstrates Sunday afternoon in the foyer of the village’s ornate city hall. Plastic string was linked to Styrofoam boxes mounted on the walls at different angles, another box filled with flashlight batteries on the ground. Beins conjures alchemist-like unmistakable percussion and string timbres from the set up. By stroking, plucking, pulling and twisting the strings the contrapuntal results resonating through nearby speakers include extended textures along with designated tones. Resembling a marionette when his hands are simultaneously attached to more than one string, Beins is no puppet but in complete control. Highpoint of the performance is when he uses a sanding motion to rub together two Styrofoam boxes, about the size of transistor radios, to create first a low-pitched buzz for a few measures, then by moving them along the strings, cello-like sustained textures.

Verbal improvisation wasn’t neglected at Densités. During two very different recitals, Paris poet Damien Schultz dramatically demonstrates the onomatopoeic and homonymic qualities of various French words and phrases. Appropriately his poems are enlivened by word and sense play, with subtle layers of meanings.

The out-of-the-way location of Fresnes-en-Woëvre often made it feel as if the participants were trapped inside an improvisational bubble. Yet the majority of Densités’ performances compensate for any isolation.

-- Ken Waxman

-- For MusicWorks Issue #107

July 3, 2010

Berg-Und Talfahrt

A Night in Sana’a
Arm 02

Nicholas Christian/Matt Milton/Eddie Prévost/Bechir Saade

A Church is Only Sacred to Believers

Al Maslakh: MSLKH 10

When it comes to sound production, musicians from what are generally thought of as Arab countries are no more monolithic in its creation then those from the west –especially if free improvisation is involved. Which is why these two discs are so fascinating, different and memorable. Even though both involve musicians of Arab background and are in the main concerned with free music, neither is like the other in any way shape or form.

For instance one of the featured improvisers on A Church is Only Sacred to Believers is Lebanese-born bass clarinetist Bechir Saade. While he’s part of a committed group of Beirut-centred improvisers who include guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui and trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj, the now London-based reedist is here as one of the members of percussionist Eddie Prévost’s on-going improvisational workshop – and not a token one at that.

Like most CDs involving the AMM-affiliated percussionist, the textures on this five-track date are non-specific. Furthermore, although bass guitarist Nicholas Christian is French, while Prévost and violinist Matt Milton are British, among the minimalist, non-specific textures there’s no hint of Arabic hysteria, Gallic sneering or British coldness – to cite a few expected national clichés.

A Night in Sana’a is a far different dish of couscous. Recorded in Yemen, it showcases a band of five local musicians, who are thrown into usual circumstances; when encouraged to improvise with two free music masters: German tenor saxophonist and clarinetist Peter Brötzmann and American drummer Michael Zerang. As expected so-called Arabic sounds are prominent on these six selections. Yet despite the American also being of Iraqi descent, sonic Arabism doesn’t predominate. Instead the local sounds are confidently mated with the reedist’s and the percussionist’s atonal and exploratory impulses.

Brötzmann’s grit is especially apparent when you contrast “Ya Nasim Al-Sahri” and “Aza-Hu Wa Adhla-Ni”, the traditional melodies which open and close the program. This side of belly dance music, the former’s undulating line is borne on the clanging strokes of Yasir Al-Absi’s darbuka and harmonic spectralism from the string section. Only in the final variation does the tenor saxophonist wade in, perforating a space in the sound for his muscular blowing. By the concluding track however the effects of protracted exposure to free playing are patently obvious. Besides blasts and split tones from Brötzmann, the piece includes a sprawling and squeaky respite from Abdul-Aziz Mokrid’s violin and twittering ney timbres from Ali Saleh. Moderating percussion slaps and rebounds emanate as much from Al-Absi’s single drum as Zerang’s full kit.

Earlier on, the strings and percussion pounding and sawing is so intense at spots that it’s reminiscent of the massed Africanized sessions put together by Archie Shepp and Pharoah Sanders in the 1970s. A track like “Jumpin’ and Rollin’” for instance imports the feeling of Chicago’s jazzy R&B to the Persian Gulf. Saleh’s repeated pinched ney ejaculations are in Yusef Lateef territory, while the clicking ostinato and staccato arpeggio from Achmed Al-Khalidy’s giant zither-like kanun, Khalid Barkosch’s cello and Mokrid’s fiddle recall the soulful strings prominently used on LPs of that time.

Mid-way through in fact, the string players appear to have become emboldened enough to start playing counter lines to contrast with Brötzmann’s wildly undulating multiphonics. Although his explosive reed-biting cries frequently almost physically blow them out of the way, the darbuka keeps pumping bongo-like pulses. “Song for Fred” despite its prosaic title can probably be deemed the set’s ballad. Oddly enough the resulting sweet harmonic fiddling and pizzicato strums advance as if the three string players are actually emulating either Neapolitan mandolin music or the ragged synchronization of an American hillbilly string band.

While the drummers spike the rhythm in pedal point, the string players even solo.

Barkosch does so with a yielding, largo and widely spaced line; and Mokrid with a spiccato turn that skirts Europeanized lyricism by adding spirited stops and slides. Since in the main the strings are twangy and twisty, there are points at which the tempo drags a bit. Overall, the beat could better be described as heave rather than swing.

Swing – or even a regular pulse – is far from the consciousness of the London quartet, with Prévost refusing to lay down any sort of beat, preferring to drag his drumstick along cymbal tops, or sound throbbing reverberations on his bass drum. Since instrumental properties are merely used as sound sources, while the players extend their techniques to their limits, the common performance currency is sul ponticello fiddle runs, buzzing textures from the bass, sliding cymbal ruffs and unvarying tongue stops and breaths from the clarinetist. Throughout the five “songs” however there’s a sense of developing parallelism, with individual output never solipsistic, but instead contributing to the common weal.

Operating by slowly propelling pointillist lines into the improvisations, the effect is that of experiencing creation in real time – although frequently one or more of the musicians fade in-and-out of sync. Wavering chalumeau split tones from the reedist and percussion thundering share space with gradually fraying sul ponticello runs from a bassist who stays very much in the background. Only on “Song Four” is there some sign of string concordance. During a section of angled counterpoint which stretches the nodes to near breaking point, electric bass rumbles at its lowest pitches, and shrill violin scratches amplify and echo burbling bass clarinet tongue stops.

Suggesting electronics without anyone plugged in besides Christian, polyphonic pitch-sliding characterize the adagio expositions. Concentrating individual squeaks, smears, strokes and sputters into a funereal whole, only rarely does any one player solo in the conventional sense. Even if that does happen, it involves bird-like twitters from Milton; spittle-encrusted, ghost notes and tongue slaps from Saade; Christian’s buzzing pulses; and Prévost’s thumps which suggest blunt objects dragging across hard surfaces. If there’s ever a timbres that resembles the Adhan or call to Muslim prayer, it’s accidental rather than arising from Saade’s past memories. Connective and contrapuntal to the end, the measured interaction eventually merely ceases.

These discs can be classified in three ways: as ones which illuminate the differences between improvisers with Arab backgrounds and others; as examples of either ethnically-inflected or self-contained free improv; or merely as two slabs of fine music.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Church: 1. Song One 2. Song Two 3. Song Three 4. Song Four 5. Song Five

Personnel: Church: Bechir Saade (bass clarinet); Matt Milton (violin); Nicholas Christian (electric bass) and Eddie Prévost (percussion)

Track Listing: Night: 1. Aza-Hu Wa Adhla-Ni 2. Borne Back Home 3. Jumpin’ and Rollin’ 4. The 3 Back 2 for Procedure 5. Song for Fred 6. Ya Nasim Al-Sahri

Personnel: Night: Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone and clarinet); Ali Saleh (ney); Abdul-Aziz Mokrid (violin); Khalid Barkosch (cello); Achmed Al-Khalidy (kanun); Michael Zerang (drums) and Yasir Al-Absi (darbuka)

April 19, 2010

Brötzmann/Kondo/Pupillo/Nilssen-Love

Hairy Bones
Okka Disk OD 12076

More than 40 years after Machine Gun, 1968’s seminal Free Jazz explosion on LP, and about 45 since he became a full-time improvising musician, the warp and woof is still present in saxophonist Peter Brötzmann’s playing.

Without resorting to hyperbole, one could make the argument that at 68, the Wuppertal-based reedist’s ideas and execution are as first-rate as they ever were. On two long tracks here, recorded at Amsterdam’s Bimhuis, Brötzmann directs an international combo that matches his invention and vigor, as well as being the musical equivalent of many of the saxophonist’s quartets of the past.

Brötzmann is joined by Japanese electric trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, seven years younger then the saxophonist, who worked with him in the 1980s and 1990s, plus two younger European musicians. Electric bassist Massimo Pupillo from Rome, is a member of the band Zu, and has worked with everyone from the Fantomas to Swedish saxophonist – and Brötz collaborator – Mats Gustafsson. One of the busiest of European drummers, Oslo-based Paal Nilssen-Love has backed musicians as disparate as British microtonal saxophonist John Butcher and Finnish jazz-rock guitarist Raoul Björkenheim as well as powering a Brötzmann’s tentet.

Putting aside the cacophony, stridency and bombast implicit in this session, it’s instructive to hear how in-the-tradition, the two 30-minute plus improvisations sound. Each is built on the conventional head-solo-solo-head format, which despite the glossolalia, rhythmic thrust and echoing electronic pulses here, in many respects comes across as an extension of the Hard Bop small combo formula. Brötzmann is no stranger to rock-styled electric instruments either, having worked with electric guitar and electric bass in Last Exit during the later 1980s.

Although the theme statement suggests that the title tune is the rhythm number and “Chain Dogs” the ballad – to use expected set list designations – by the time Brötzmann and company work up a whole head of steam, there’s enough power generated in both tracks to illuminate a mid-sized German city.

In “Hairy Bones” the drummer’s ricocheting strokes and the bass guitarist’s slides and stomps help separate sound shards into the multiphonic discord, as successive plunger washes from Kondo and braying snorts from Brötzmann add to the burbling and twittering voltage. As the differing tonal shades from the saxophonist’s glottal punctuation and reed bites mate with Kondo’s half-valve obbligatos and watery chunks, sul tasto string scrapes and finger pops from Pupillo also join the trumpeter’s electronic signal processing. The four eventually unite in rubato quadruple counterpoint, with a melodic inversion of the initial theme played by Brötzmann on tarogato serving as the finale. That is once Nilssen-Love has expresses himself with opposite sticking on the snares and toms, cymbal sizzle and temple bell-like rebounds.

Lengthier than the first tune “Chain Dogs” throws aside lyricism once ghostly and reflective brass timbres – a capella like Broötzmann’s intro – give way to thumping backbeat and string-shuffling scrapes. Soon strained trumpet chirps – doubled and redoubled with programming – are rubbing up against distorted bass guitar licks and renal reed textures. As Kondo’s broken-octave line crackles and peep, Brötzmann’s extended alto saxophone solo repeatedly bonds ragged pitches so that the resulting phrase clusters make it seem as if the saxman is playing “Open the Door, Richard” at different tempos and time signatures. Aided by Kondo’s fleet, fluid and iridescent vibrations, Brötzmann pushes the others to a full stop with ragged, split tones as the variants nearly overblow to infinity.

On the evidence of this CD alone, it’s obvious that Brötzmann hasn’t lost his Free Jazz mojo.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing 1. Hairy Bones 2. Chain Dogs

Personnel: Toshinori Kondo (electric trumpet); Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, Bb clarinet and tarogato); Massimo Pupillo (electric bass) and Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)

August 30, 2009

Peter Brötzmann/Fred Lonberg-Holm

The Brain of the Dog in Section
Atavistic ALP 186 CD

Tony Malaby Cello Trio

Warblepeck

Songlines SGL SA1574-2

Hardest working man in cello business, Chicago-based Fred Lonberg-Holm is the point of intersection for these sessions. More to the point, even though both feature his strings and electronics plus the talents of an unfettered saxophonist – as well as percussionist John Hollenbeck on Warblepeck – the results couldn’t be more different.

Partnered alongside Lonberg-Holm on The Brain of the Dog in Section is veteran Peter Brötzmann playing alto and tenor saxophones, Bb clarinet and torogato in his usual take-no-prisoners style. Lasting fewer than 38 minutes both men demonstrate how stark, unfettered, harsh improvisation reveal the essence of improvisation.

Featuring the tenor and soprano saxophone of Tony Malaby – a quarter-century younger than Brötzmann – the other CD seems as if it could be subtitled “field recordings from Brooklyn”. Certainly over the course of 11 tunes and nearly 55 minutes, the three players expose a panoply of rhythms, tones, timbres and pitches. At points sounding like Ornette Coleman’s electric bands at others like literal primitivist music, unexpected sonic excitement arrives not only from the others’ command of their two instruments, but from Hollenbeck’s garage sale collection of percussion implements which include drums, a marimba, a xylophone, a glockenspiel, a melodica and small kitchen appliances. Hollenbeck, who in other contexts plays straight ahead jazz and chamber-influenced music, apparently has the knack to choose the proper percussion sound and instrument for each of the mostly Malaby-composed tunes.

Starting with the title track the general groove is of Prime Time meets junkeroo –that is until the program advances to glockenspiel-splintering beats and repetitive node-splitting strums and runs from Lonberg-Holm. Eventually the theme is defined with choruses of gritty tenor saxophone by Malaby. With the three harmonizing or operating in triple counterpoint, the other tracks range from those which touch on chamber improv – featuring cello glissandi plus carefully positioned marimba and xylophone strokes from the percussionist – to those which deconstruct monadic traditional forms into buffo North American variants.

“Sky Church” for example, evolves from a moderato melody advanced by the saxophonist aided by kit drumming rattles and straight-ahead bowing to fissure created by Lonberg-Holm’s oscillated tone pressure plus nerve beats and friction from Hollenbeck. Spiccato string sweeps patched and modulated through electronics eventually redefine the theme, aided by Malaby’s foreshortened saxophone trills. Finally the saxophonist uses tremolo reed bites to reconstitute noises into an equally appealing variant. Similarly “Anemone” concludes with an interlude of satisfying triple unison from the three, but only after portamento low pitches from the cello plus glockenspiel friction give way to wispy breaths from the tenor saxophone built on top of celesta-like patterns from the marimba.

Surprisingly, the trio’s reading of Bill Frissell’s “Waiting Inside” manages to present the tune in balladic mode at commencement and conclusion. But the band proves its originality by enlivening a mid-section by masking cello glissandi and ruffling obbligatos from the tenor saxophone, with accordion-like squeals from Hollenbeck’s melodica and shrill string slices from Lonberg-Holm.

No one would ever confuse Brötzmann for a discreet and genteel chamber player – re-read this CD’s title for a clue to his persona. But at this point his reed command is so entrenched that his range overwhelms even if the textures exposed can resemble the death rattle of a carnivorous animal or the warning cries of a carrion-seeking bird of prey. Lonberg-Holm’s harsh oscillations, ring modulator-suggested vamps and agitated sul ponticello flanges are perfect in this context, since they set up abrasive counterpoint to the reedist’s blustering multiphonics.

Concentrating more on the details of the journey rather than the destination, the Brötzmann-Lonberg-Holm duo is in constant contact. But while double counterpoint may appear from time-to-time – on purpose rather than by hazard – unison harmony is not an option. Instead Brötzmann often blows directly into his horns’ body tube, eschewing the niceties of key patterns or tonguing, transforming the instrument into a percussion source. Meanwhile the cellist’s agitated and abrasive attack splinters into spiccato, often tremolo, lines and jetes.

This pattern is repeated when Brötzmann brings out Bb clarinet or torogató, so that broken chords can be hummed, buzzed or shrilled. Taking up the challenge, the cellist’s bowing range includes blurry, electronic-helped multiphonics that wobble, crackle and rub. Shuffle bowing meets broadening whistles among other face-offs, so that each man creates at the same level of intensity. The concordance is such that the strident tessitura suggests both as equal parts of a single string-horn instrument.

Climatically the string-rubbing on one side and note-spraying on the other is eventually superseded and narrowed to solitary squeaks – hard and sharp with irregular vibrations and glossolalia on Brötzmann’s part – as Lonberg-Holm not only plucks but also unleashes pulsating, twittering wave forms. The finale encompasses reed raspberries with a side helping of dissonant glissandi.

Cello played smoothly or stridently is on show on each of these notable discs. Remarkably they arrive from the same source.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Brain: 1. Section 1 2. Section 2 3. Section 3

Personnel: Brain: Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, Bb clarinet and torogató) and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello and electronics)

Track Listing: Warblepeck: 1. Warblepeck 2. 2. Jackhat 1 3. 3. Two Shadows 4. Waiting Inside 5. Fly on Wall/Remolino 6. Anemone 7. Anemone Vamp 8. Sky Church

9. Scribble Boy 10. Jackhat 2 11. Chicotaso

Personnel: Warblepeck: Tony Malaby (tenor and soprano saxophones); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello and electronics) and John Hollenbeck (drums, marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel, melodica and small kitchen appliances)

April 8, 2009

Tony Malaby Cello Trio

Warblepeck
Songlines SGL SA1574-2

Peter Brötzmann/Fred Lonberg-Holm

The Brain of the Dog in Section

Atavistic ALP 186 CD

Hardest working man in cello business, Chicago-based Fred Lonberg-Holm is the point of intersection for these sessions. More to the point, even though both feature his strings and electronics plus the talents of an unfettered saxophonist – as well as percussionist John Hollenbeck on Warblepeck – the results couldn’t be more different.

Partnered alongside Lonberg-Holm on The Brain of the Dog in Section is veteran Peter Brötzmann playing alto and tenor saxophones, Bb clarinet and torogato in his usual take-no-prisoners style. Lasting fewer than 38 minutes both men demonstrate how stark, unfettered, harsh improvisation reveal the essence of improvisation.

Featuring the tenor and soprano saxophone of Tony Malaby – a quarter-century younger than Brötzmann – the other CD seems as if it could be subtitled “field recordings from Brooklyn”. Certainly over the course of 11 tunes and nearly 55 minutes, the three players expose a panoply of rhythms, tones, timbres and pitches. At points sounding like Ornette Coleman’s electric bands at others like literal primitivist music, unexpected sonic excitement arrives not only from the others’ command of their two instruments, but from Hollenbeck’s garage sale collection of percussion implements which include drums, a marimba, a xylophone, a glockenspiel, a melodica and small kitchen appliances. Hollenbeck, who in other contexts plays straight ahead jazz and chamber-influenced music, apparently has the knack to choose the proper percussion sound and instrument for each of the mostly Malaby-composed tunes.

Starting with the title track the general groove is of Prime Time meets junkeroo –that is until the program advances to glockenspiel-splintering beats and repetitive node-splitting strums and runs from Lonberg-Holm. Eventually the theme is defined with choruses of gritty tenor saxophone by Malaby. With the three harmonizing or operating in triple counterpoint, the other tracks range from those which touch on chamber improv – featuring cello glissandi plus carefully positioned marimba and xylophone strokes from the percussionist – to those which deconstruct monadic traditional forms into buffo North American variants.

“Sky Church” for example, evolves from a moderato melody advanced by the saxophonist aided by kit drumming rattles and straight-ahead bowing to fissure created by Lonberg-Holm’s oscillated tone pressure plus nerve beats and friction from Hollenbeck. Spiccato string sweeps patched and modulated through electronics eventually redefine the theme, aided by Malaby’s foreshortened saxophone trills. Finally the saxophonist uses tremolo reed bites to reconstitute noises into an equally appealing variant. Similarly “Anemone” concludes with an interlude of satisfying triple unison from the three, but only after portamento low pitches from the cello plus glockenspiel friction give way to wispy breaths from the tenor saxophone built on top of celesta-like patterns from the marimba.

Surprisingly, the trio’s reading of Bill Frissell’s “Waiting Inside” manages to present the tune in balladic mode at commencement and conclusion. But the band proves its originality by enlivening a mid-section by masking cello glissandi and ruffling obbligatos from the tenor saxophone, with accordion-like squeals from Hollenbeck’s melodica and shrill string slices from Lonberg-Holm.

No one would ever confuse Brötzmann for a discreet and genteel chamber player – re-read this CD’s title for a clue to his persona. But at this point his reed command is so entrenched that his range overwhelms even if the textures exposed can resemble the death rattle of a carnivorous animal or the warning cries of a carrion-seeking bird of prey. Lonberg-Holm’s harsh oscillations, ring modulator-suggested vamps and agitated sul ponticello flanges are perfect in this context, since they set up abrasive counterpoint to the reedist’s blustering multiphonics.

Concentrating more on the details of the journey rather than the destination, the Brötzmann-Lonberg-Holm duo is in constant contact. But while double counterpoint may appear from time-to-time – on purpose rather than by hazard – unison harmony is not an option. Instead Brötzmann often blows directly into his horns’ body tube, eschewing the niceties of key patterns or tonguing, transforming the instrument into a percussion source. Meanwhile the cellist’s agitated and abrasive attack splinters into spiccato, often tremolo, lines and jetes.

This pattern is repeated when Brötzmann brings out Bb clarinet or torogató, so that broken chords can be hummed, buzzed or shrilled. Taking up the challenge, the cellist’s bowing range includes blurry, electronic-helped multiphonics that wobble, crackle and rub. Shuffle bowing meets broadening whistles among other face-offs, so that each man creates at the same level of intensity. The concordance is such that the strident tessitura suggests both as equal parts of a single string-horn instrument.

Climatically the string-rubbing on one side and note-spraying on the other is eventually superseded and narrowed to solitary squeaks – hard and sharp with irregular vibrations and glossolalia on Brötzmann’s part – as Lonberg-Holm not only plucks but also unleashes pulsating, twittering wave forms. The finale encompasses reed raspberries with a side helping of dissonant glissandi.

Cello played smoothly or stridently is on show on each of these notable discs. Remarkably they arrive from the same source.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Brain: 1. Section 1 2. Section 2 3. Section 3

Personnel: Brain: Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, Bb clarinet and torogató) and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello and electronics)

Track Listing: Warblepeck: 1. Warblepeck 2. 2. Jackhat 1 3. 3. Two Shadows 4. Waiting Inside 5. Fly on Wall/Remolino 6. Anemone 7. Anemone Vamp 8. Sky Church

9. Scribble Boy 10. Jackhat 2 11. Chicotaso

Personnel: Warblepeck: Tony Malaby (tenor and soprano saxophones); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello and electronics) and John Hollenbeck (drums, marimba, xylophone, glockenspiel, melodica and small kitchen appliances)

April 8, 2009

Peter Brötzmann

Alarm
Atavistic ALP257CD

Brötzmann/Mangelsdorff/Sommer
Pica Pica
Atavistic ALP258CD

Two more valuable CD reissues of Wuppertal, Germany-based saxophonist Peter Brötzmann’s work for FMP in the 1980s once again show his versatility. One disk offers proof positive that the hard-driving reedist can easily hold up his side in an all-star trio configuration, while the other shows how he helps spark aural fireworks in a nonet situation.

Ironically the aptly-named Alarm almost ended up being more than a fanciful “blast from the past”. This Hamburg radio gig with a multi-national cast of nine Free Jazzers had to be interrupted after the 40 odd minutes captured on the disc were recorded because a phoned-in bomb threat meant that the audience, technicians and musicians had to quickly evacuate the hall.

Lacking the extra-musical drama of the other date, Pica Pica is just as incendiary, with Brötzmann playing tenor, baritone and alto saxophones and tarogato as one part of a little-recorded trio. His front-line partner is veteran trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, then in the most experimental phase of his long career, but the real surprise is the presence of Günter “Baby” Sommer on traps set and horn. Like Han Bennink of the Netherlands –

Brotz’s usual percussion partner – Sommer is an all-around drum master. Unlike Bennink, he resides in East Berlin, on the other side of the then-existing wall, so he was just starting to interact with non-East Block players.

You couldn’t tell that from this session. Sommer’s tambourine shuddering cymbal raps, intense cross sticking and triplet flams and rattles add heaving tension to the tunes, which take on new dimensions when he releases the beat. As the trombonist and reedist bluster away on two long improvisations and the short title track, Sommer contributes blunt polyrhythms, using sticks, brushes, palms and fists to provide vivid brush strokes of aural color. The jokey and jittery “Pica, Pica” makes the greatest use of the drummer’s faux parade-drill timing. But his harsh ruffs and bulldozer-like press rolls are in evidence throughout.

Rotating among his horns like a mini-reed section Brötzmann spins from steady air raid siren glossolalia on alto to inchoate, near bagpipe-like timbres on tarogato and slurry and smeary reed undulations on baritone. His characteristic stratospheric glottal punctuation is often evident, as are his mouse-squeaking altissimo tones. Once, when he seems to be soloing on two different horns, it becomes apparent that the secondary timbres are from Sommer’s horn.

Articulating chromatic grace notes and whinnying plunger tones, Mangelsdorff’s triple-tongued slurs make common cause with the saxophonist’s staccato phrasing. Often accompanying as well as soloing, his pedal-point lilt sneaks in a common Bop riff at the end of “Wie Du Mir, So Ich Dir Noch Lange Nicht” to keep the proceedings on track as the piece downshifts to muted harmony.

Triple the brass, reed and rhythm on Pica Pica, and you approximate the cacophonous polyphony that arises during Alarm’s extended title track. Surprise at this explosion is a moot – but definitely not a mute – point when you consider the other players. The rhythm section is made up of German Free Jazz big band leader Alexander von Schlippenbach on piano plus two European-domiciled South African expatriates, bassist Harry Miller and drummer Louis Moholo. Brass was Japanese trumpeter Toshinori Kondo – who would reunite with Brötz for the Die Like A Dog band in the 1990s – and two trombonists: modern gutbucket stylist, East German Johannes Bauer, and British trombonist Alan Tomlinson, who was also a member of the London Jazz Composers Orchestra.

Joining Brötzmann on reeds is Willem Breuker from the Netherlands, then (1981) closer to his Free Jazz roots than his later composerly stance; plus American tenor saxophonist Frank Wright, a first generation New Thinger then part of the burgeoning Yank jazzmen-in-Europe-Diaspora.

Driven by the dense and unyielding rhythm section – that in Miller’s case also encompasses shuffle-bowing tremolo and stretched sul ponticello jetes – the massed band exposes the robust theme, variations of which are utilized by the horn section as linking motifs that connect the solos. And what solos they are.

Von Schlippenbach is at his most manic, turning high-intensity pummeling into a metronomic fantasia of exaggerated note clusters and patterns. Kondo contributes half-valve squeezes and brassy slurs, while the stop-time dual trombone theatrics include guttural, spittle-encrusted blasts and metal-scraping concussive expansion.

Not that the reedists are outdone. Except for an off-kilter, a capella raggedy march – is it a mess call or a mail call? – the majority of the saxophone timbres undulate almost physically. Parlando and flutter tonguing, each of three saxmen at times gets involved in double counterpoint with an individual brass player until hyper-fast piano motifs push the tune forward. Slip-sliding, roller-coaster-like coils and twists are expressed by both horn families, as are snorting, basement-level expositions and shrill altissimo timbres. Eventually the high-level pan-tonality gives way to conclusive slurs.

While it’s difficult to isolate individual soloist, there’s no doubt that it’s Wright who sings the jivey lyrics to his own brief “Jerry Sacem”. A rhythmic blues, the undemanding melody and Moholo’s backbeat easily speed the audience outside the studio without anyone being panicked about the purported bomb threat.

Luckily this part of the concert was preserved. It, along with the other CD fills in some gaps in European Free Jazz history. But both are exhilarating listening as well.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Alarm: 1. Alarm Part 1 2. Alarm Part 2 3. Jerry Sacem

Personnel: Alarm: Toshinori Kondo (trumpet); Johannes Bauer and Alan Tomlinson (trombones); Willem Breuker (alto and tenor saxophones); Peter Brötzmann (tenor and alto saxophone); Frank Wright (tenor saxophone); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano); Harry Miller (bass) and Louis Moholo (drums)

Track Listing: Pica: 1. Instant Tears 2. Wie Du Mir, So Ich Dir Noch Lange Nicht 3. Pica, Pica

Personnel: Pica: Albert Mangelsdorff (trombones); Peter Brötzmann (tenor, baritone and alto saxophones and tarogato) and Günter “Baby” Sommer (drums and horn)

November 14, 2006

PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET

Be Music, Night
OkkaDisk OD 12059

This CD may ruin saxophonist Peter Brötzmann’s long-held reputation as the ferocious, hard-hearted wild man of Free Jazz.

For the entire hour-plus CD by the German reedman’s mostly Chicago-based band is designed as homage to American poet Kenneth Patchen (1911-1972). Additionally, the longest – more than 42 minutes – of the three tracks features mellifluous-voiced Welsh poet Mike Pearson integrated into the ensemble reading selections from Patchen’s work that are, for all intents and purposes, love poems.

Patchen, an Ohio-born versifier who lived all over the United States, was a Beat fellow traveler, with a musical quality in some of his poetry. Even before similar experiments by Jack Kerouac, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Alan Ginsberg, in the late 1950s he recorded LPs reading his verse accompanied by improvising jazz combos. In a way this CD is an extension of those experiments.

Framed by an all-instrumental prelude and even shorter postlude, BE MUSIC, NIGHT unfurls like a tone poem for chamber orchestra. Of course with the massed talent on display – three reeds, two brasses, two strings and two percussionists – the layering provide more than interludes. Mixing brass slurs and pedal tones, expressive reed continuo and stop-time percussion forays, the framing instrumental passages manage to be both lyrical and polyphonic.

Furthermore, to put to rest another Free Jazz myth, the German reedist’s playing has never been as coarse as his detractors insist. As long ago as 1984 he recorded a solo CD, since reissued as 14 LOVE POEMS PLUS 10 MORE (FMP CD 125), which featured improvisations inspired by Patchen’s “14 Love Poems”.

Multiplying the interpretations of the poet’s lyrics nine-fold here, much of the instrumental elucidation depends on tutti passages or impetuous and unexpected fortissimo ejaculations. Besides the horn brays and slurs, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm is particularly effective in transforming his four strings into an electric guitar spraying discordant effects pedal timbres.

Almost deliberately old-fashioned at times, as if Pearson was reading Elizabethan sonnets, the verse is mixed with tender nocturne-like pitches that are almost as honeyed as the poet/actor’s near whispered tones. But romantic language doesn’t have to bring forth banal responses. Among the textures advanced by the saxophonists – most obviously Brötzmann, though Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark clarinet passages are noticeable as well – are tongue slaps, vibrating key clicks and pops and slurred cries. Also especially effective are the grace notes buzzed by trombonist Jeb Bishop, whose valve-and-bell expansion often partners Pearson’s recitation.

An unexpected pleasure all around, BE MUSIC, NIGHT should appeal to those interested in dramatically recited poetry, those fascinated by the admixture of words and music, and those whose understanding of emotionalism encompasses sound and silences as well as lyrics.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Be Music, Night Part 1 2. Be Music, Night Part 2 3. Be Music, Night Part 3

Personnel: Joe McPhee (trumpet and alto saxophone); Jeb Bishop (trombone); Peter Brötzmann (alto and saxophones, bass clarinet and b-flat clarinet); Mats Gustafsson (baritone saxophone and bass clarinet); Ken Vandermark (baritone saxophone and b-flat-clarinet); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello); Kent Kessler (bass); Paal Nilssen-Love and Michael Zerang (drums); Mike Pearson (voice)

January 2, 2006

Multiphonics in the Middle East

Taking stock of Lebanon’s Improv scene
From CODA Issue 323

By Ken Waxman

“I was born the same year of the Lebanese war, and I lived in it until its end and in fact I’m more and more convinced that there’s a close relation between it and my kind of playing today,” explains Beirut-based trumpeter Mazen Kerbaj, 30. “A lot of my passion for this music [Free Jazz] comes from my childhood, it reminds me unconsciously of the soundscapes of bombs and rifles that filled my ears during my childhood.”

War and bombs aside, the CD that so affected Kerbaj and his friends and introduced them to Free Jazz, was Peter Brötzmann’s Machine Gun, complete with its war-like cover. This initiation soon led to he and other like-minded players amassing as many Free Improv CDs as they could by the likes of Evan Parker and Charlie Haden.

The lessons took so well that by 2000, Kerbaj and husband and wife improvisers, guitarist Sharif Sehnaoui and alto saxophonist Christine Sehnaoui – who spend part of the year in Paris – organized and played Beirut’s first improvised music gigs. Having established the only Free Scene anywhere in the Middle East outside of Israel, the three didn’t stop there. In 2001 they structured an annual International Festival for Free Improvised Music, called Irtijal – which means improvised in Arabic – in Beirut, and it’s still growing.

Having invited advanced players from France, Belgium, Germany, Norway and the United States to play alongside Lebanese improvisers in previous festivals, the most recent Irtijal festival and workshops, which took place in early July, came full circle to Kerbaj’s original influence. Saxophonist Brötzmann was a featured guest, playing in a duo with American drummer Michael Zerang. Among the other non-local participants were saxophonist John Dikeman and clarinetist Gene Coleman from the United States; British guitarist Mike Cooper; Swiss clarinetist Markus Eichenberger; and French guitarists Pascal Battus and Quentin Dubost, plus soprano saxophonist Stéphane Rives from Paris.

As well as their own solo spots, all the international musicians save Brötzmann played with local improvisers in formations ranging from trios to big bands. Additionally, improv concerts now take place outside the festival proper. In 2003, for instance, the Sehnaouis, Kerbaj and French-Vietnamese percussionist Lê Quan Ninh gigged in the village of Salima. This year the three Lebanese founders plus Zerang played in Deir El Kamar and adding Coleman, performed the first concert of improvised music in Zahleh, in eastern Lebanon

Zerang, who played in Cairo in the 1980s and in Yemen with Brötzmann in 2004 was impressed by the enthusiastic listeners. “I’m thrilled to be taking the music to a potentially new and different audience,” he declares. “I think this form of freely improvised music will reach a new audience at a very exciting time in their history. Having and icon like Peter [Brötzmann] here also gives the festival extra authenticity,” he adds.

Regarding his collaborations with local players, percussionist adds that “we western artists can learn a great deal from the artists in Lebanon, as their rich traditions of arts and culture are so obviously healthy and on display.”

Today, Lebanese audiences’ initial skepticism towards the music has disappeared, explains Kerbaj, with more than 100 people attending some festival concerts. “For a small country like Lebanon, that’s quite a lot.

“The audience is also special because they’ve never heard this music before and it’s a huge surprise for their ears and eyes. One day after a concert, for instance, a guy came up to me saying: ‘That’s great! You invented a new music.’ You rarely find these reactions in Europe.”

Even more gratifying to Kerbaj is the number of local musicians encouraged by the festivals and workshops who now play improvised music themselves. Although the number is small, the players come from different backgrounds including rock – sucvh as guitarist Charbel Haber – contemporary, ethnic musics and theatre – like bassist Raed Yassine, who is also an actor.

There are also limited opportunities to play outside the country, mostly in France where the Sehnaouis live, although Kerbaj himself did a short tour of the United States in 2004. Surprisingly, notes the trumpeter “our most incredible experience with a good audience was in Damascus [Syria].” This enthusiasm was for a trio made up of him, guitarist Sehnaoui and bassist Yassine, was “in a country where you can hardly even find a rock CD,” he adds.

More international players are finding their way to Lebanon and earlier this year a new label dedicated to improv called Al Maslakh (the slaughterhouse in Arabic) was created. Al Maslakh has so far released CDs by Rouba3i – which means quartet in Arabic – made up of Kerbaj and the Sehnaouis plus one additional instrumentalist, and Kerbaj’s solo disc.

Despite the country’s somewhat fractious political situation, an outgrowth of the 1975 to 1990 civil war and subsequent Syrian presence, the trumpeter maintains that improvisers are never bothered by censorship “because we are mainly ‘underground’ and nobody really hears about us, except people interested in what we do.”

With CDs available, more gigs with locals and outside players, Kerbaj hopes that one day what he describes as “the first Arabic scene for improv” will spread to neighboring countries like “Syria, Jordan and maybe even Iraq.”

Festival link: www.irtijal.com

Improvisers Website: www.zwyx.org/mill

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Lebanese Improv on CD
:

•Rouba3i5: Mazen Kerbaj, Ingar Zach (Norwegian drummer), Christine Sehnaoui and Sharif Sehnaoui (Al Maslakh 02)

•Brt Vrt Zrt Krt: Mazen Kerbaj trumpet solo (Al Maslakh 01)

•Abu Tarek: Mazen Kerbaj and Franz Hautzinger trumpets (Creative Sources CS 025)

•Franz Hautzinger’s Oriental Space: Mazen Kerbaj, Franz Hautzinger ,Sharif Sehnaoui, Helge Hinteregger (Artonal ARR 08)

•A: Mazen Kerbaj, Sharif Sehnaoui and Raed Yassine (Thèque ) –the first CD of Arab improv every released

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Improvisers active on the Beirut scene
:

*Marc Codsi - electric guitar

*Charbel Haber - electric guitar

*Mayalynn Hage - voice

*Jassem Hindi – clarinet and mixing board

*Abdallah K - laptop

*Mazen Kerbaj - trumpet

*Bechir Saadeh – clarinet and flute

*Christine Sehnaoui - alto saxophone

*Sharif Sehnaoui - electric guitar

*Raed Yassine - double bass

September 7, 2005

Northern Sun, Southern Moon, Europe’s Reinvention of Jazz

By Mike Heffley
Yale University Press

By Ken Waxman
July 23, 2005

Gifted with an imaginative thesis – the migration of innovative free music from the African-American community of the United States and its adoption and mutation by Europeans – Mike Heffley’s book encompasses interviews, analysis, musicology and philosophical concepts. Unfortunately, the academic emphasis makes some of it a hard slog for the lay reader. Often non-linear, as benefits a book on Free Jazz, the narrative is so discursive at points that it resembles those John Coltrane solos where the variations so outdistanced the theme as to almost make the head an afterthought.

Heffley, who has a PhD in ethnomusicology from Wesleyan University, has over the past quarter-century worked as a writer and editor – his previous (1996) book was The Music of Anthony Braxton – as an educator, teaching both music and creative writing, and as an improvising trombonist, most prominently with Braxton.

Northern Sun, Southern Moon is the first comprehensive English language study of what Heffley terms Euro Jazz’s Emanzipation; the period after 1960s when local jazz musicians went beyond the previously paramount American influence to shake off centuries of Western music conventions and create unique sounds. As French, bassist Didier Levallet says: “With the advent of free jazz the breakdown of forms believed to be eternal opened the door to all possibilities … the lesson the ‘new music’ taught us was to finally become ourselves”. Taking his cues from psychiatry and sociology as well as musicology, Heffley describes the change as empowerment or more theatrically “kill the fathers”.

Although the book’s subtitle is Europe’s Reinvention of Jazz, the author’s attention is more focused. While he devotes some space to innovations in the rest of Europe, including the former Eastern Bloc, his concentration is on Germany, both its western, and – most definitely before the fall of the Berlin Wall – its eastern section. Described by some as a Utopia of Free Jazz, Germany was where entire Outside Music festivals flourished while even individual concerts were sparsely attended elsewhere in Europe.

A series of socio-political considerations were responsible for this situation, explains Heffley, who intertwines the growth of the seminal Free Jazz label FMP plus mini-portraits of about a dozen or so pioneering Free Jazzers to make his point. According to his thesis – which is buttressed or diverted by secondary information, so frequently do multiple footnotes decorate these pages – Germany, at least since J.S. Bach, has been the centre of Europe, and thus of contemporary serious music.

Brushing off the assertion that one Free Jazz centre, Germany’s Ruhr Valley region, was with its agricultural economy and peasant population “something like the American South”, he’s on firmer ground when he points out that African-American saxophone and brass traditions that fed directly to jazz – and gave German musicians a base against which to rebel – itself grew out of the brass bands prominent in the U.S. before the beginning of the 20th century. Fascinatingly, the loudest and most accomplished players then were of German origin, he states.

After the Second World War, when Nazi xenophobia tainted previously glorified Teutonic music associations, the German tradition of self-criticism dating back to Goethe found an outlet in improvised sounds. Simultaneously a strain of anti-Americanism, which reached a pitch in the 1968 leftist student uprising throughout the continent, and especially in Germany, solidified this focus on distinctive Free Jazz.

These manifestations took different forms, as his profiles attest. German trombone master Albert Mangelsdorff, for instance, started off as a mainstreamer, and after a free flirtation, has returned to his roots. Pianist Joachim Kühn, whose church musician associated upbringing in Leipzig historically links him to Bach, mixes a strain of romanticism into his work – an outgrowth of a long residency in France. His earliest recorded work bordered on free form and he is the only pianist to have recorded in duo with Free Jazz avatar saxophonist Ornette Coleman. But – and Heffley’s linkages between Bach and Coleman gives weight to this – it’s likely the Texas saxophonist valued Kühn for his non-Free Jazz conception. Certainly most of his other work has bounced among modern New music, jazz-rock and contemporary jazz with so-called classical inferences. Interestingly enough, both Mangelsdorff and Kühn achieved American fame long before any of the others profiled here.

More generic to the tome are the careers of saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and pianist/band leader Alexander von Schlippenbach, who are among the founding fathers of West German Free Jazz. Schlippenbach, like vibist/reedist Günter Hampel, who also figures in the tale, was one of the German hard boppers converted to free sounds in the 1960s; and who has stayed true to them ever since. Spiritual and philosophical, his Globe Unity Orchestra, which has existed on-and-off for three decades, was a non-hierarchical, collective big band dedicated to the universality of Free Music, matching organized arrangements with the talents of Europe’s top improvisers.

With influences ranging from pan-Germanism and other ethnic sounds, contemporary classical echoes and standard jazz – as a pianist Schlippenbach was impressed by Oscar Peterson as well as Thelonious Monk and Cecil Taylor – the band’s performances and records were as often frustrating as triumphant. Mostly now the pianist concentrates on trio work with British saxophonist Evan Parker among others.

Referring to Brötzmann, Parker has said “… the music [is an] expression of a way of life. On-stage, off-stage, it’s all one thing: an intensity of experience which has to be communicated. Peter embodies that...”

If anyone symbolically couples what the author calls “the barbaric spirit of the Northern forests” that flourished in German pre-history with the unbridled freedom of avant jazz, than it’s the Wuppertal-based saxophonist. Growing up in what was then a small town removed from the action, Brötzmann’s involvement in leftist politics and the Fluxus art movement helped him evolve “a sound so big and dirty that one note implied within it all the notes in the octave”. His first LPs, Machine Gun and For Adolphe Sax, defined his – and many other Continental improvisers’ – go-for-broke, try-anything aesthetic, which in a multitude of settings from solo to big band with fellow international players, he’s maintained until today.

The heart and most fascinating part of the book however, is shaped around telling the back-story of the members of East Berlin’s Zentral Quartet: pianist Ulrich Gumpert, self-described Saxon drummer Gunter “Baby” Sommer, saxophonist Ernst-Ludwig Petrovsky and trombonist Konrad Bauer, who started as a rock singer with a large youth audience which, incredibly, he brought along with him to free music.

Facing a pseudo-Stalinist culture that supported so-called socialist realism like sanctioned Gebraunchmusik or “useful music” over free expression, their situation was much different than that of Free Jazzers in prosperous West Germany. Paradoxically this led to government support as often a repression, since jazz was as often seen as reflecting a cry against racism and decadence, with its Nazi era echoes. Fittingly, Heffley explores the pre-free roots of East German jazz in comprehensive details, mentioning almost-forgotten gigs, LPs, band leaders, art, literary and threatre influences and visionary soloists.

“East Germans were not only less worried about being seen as imitators of Americans, they were also less guilt-ridden about their own German history,” he writes. When translated into free music, this added a Teutonic strain – a variation of East German blues – “Afro-Slavic soulmating” plus a use of old Germanic hymns as a basis for improvisation – that had been ignored and self-suppressed by West Germans. With visits by Western players and East-West collaborations more common, regular concerts broadcast on the state-supported radio networks and series of East German LPs on FMP available, East German musicians’ profiles rose. Acclaim and steady work, first in Eastern Bloc countries, then West Germany and the rest of Europe eventually appeared.

Although theoretical Gumpert states “for me there is no such thing as GDR [German Democratic Republic i.e. East Germany] jazz” the situation for free jazzers in the GDR changed with unification. With Western commerce in all its manifestations replacing state support, Gumpert and Petrovsky, the later of whom said ironically before the fall of the Berlin wall that jazz musicians “didn’t have enough problems”, are now often mere jobbing musicians, the later concertizing with his pop-jazz-gospel singing wife. Sommer has a teaching position and often tours, whereas Bauer is a festival fixture throughout Europe and North America.

“It does seem clear that Petrovsky and Gumpert enjoyed relatively more fulfillment than frustration of their gifts in the GDR, that Sommer and Bauer were more chafers at the bit, and that the latter are having an easier time of it now that the bit is removed”, Heffley notes.

Leaving aside this important reportage and analysis, the rest of Northern Sun, Southern Moon, links to earlier sections and becomes progressively more theoretical and academic. Seemingly intent on wrapping every musical current into the volume, Heffley uses German bassist Peter Kowald’s many international musical alliances as the lead-in to a necessarily cursory discussion of non-Western improv and its links to earlier Western music. “It seemed to me that the more people try to make something that is new to them, the further back they go into the depths of time, to the old, in their own sphere”, he writes. This theory however, sounds like it could be the basis for an entire other volume of work.

Like Petrovsky and Gumpert in their milieu, it appears that the author has “relatively more fulfillment than frustration of [his] gifts” when writing about the GDR than the twists and turns of Free Jazz as part of the global commercial music business.

Additionally a thickset of charts, graphs and tables begins haunting the pages around this time. Earlier on, and in these sections, his discursive detours into historical, social, political and cultural contexts of the music slows down the narrative, and as the chapters unroll the non-specialist begins to feel guilty for not possessing a thorough knowledge of the theories of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin among many others. Especially in the expository, rather than the descriptive sections, Heffley sometimes falls prey to cumbersome overwriting. For instance, one obtruding run-on sentence is 138 words [!] in length. Furthermore words like “hetarchy”, “individuation” and “liberatory” aren’t in most persons’ vocabularies. Conversely, although at times they distract from the narrative, Heffley’s minute analysis of important Free Jazz sessions adds to the significance of this volume.

At his best – when dealing with German free music – Heffley has produced a ground-breaking and insightful volume. Non-specialists may wish however, that there wasn’t so much rococo decoration around its solid core.

July 25, 2005

EVAN PARKER TRIO & PETER BRÖTZMANN TRIO

The Bishop’s Move
VICTO cd 093

A extraordinary face off between veteran improv titans or as they prefer to say at the Victoriaville festival, un première mondiale, this meeting combines British saxophonist Evan Parker’s touring group with German reedist Peter Brötzmann’s Northern American band. More of a rapprochement than a battle royal, the 73½-minute session, recorded live at Quebec’s Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville in 2003 categorically accentuates the similarities rather than the differences between the two improv power trios.

Could it be otherwise? Although Parker is famous for highly technical extended reed techniques like everlasting circular breathing, and Brötzmann is portrayed as the emotional, heart-on-his-sleeve Free Jazzer, they’ve collaborated at various times since the late 1960s. Parker, for instance, is on the German saxophonist’ seminal MACHINE GUN session in 1968. Brötzmann’s association with German pianist Alexander Von Schlippenbach, here officially as part of the Parker band, goes back even further and is more intense, since the two were initial members of the Globe Unity Orchestra. Parker recorded with New York bassist William Parker of Brötzmann’s trio in pianist Cecil Taylor European Orchestra in 1988. Only percussionists Paul Lytton, a Belgium-dwelling-Briton, and Hamid Drake of Chicago don’t have an extended history of playing with members of the other bands or each other. But considering both are among the most prominent on-call drummer in the global improv scene, connections have long been made.

That said, while “The Bishop’s Move” is a notable piece of high-intensity improv, there are only patches of interaction between members of the different trios, let alone among all six musicians at once. Customarily one threesome plays alone, followed by another triad grouping. Most of the time its Von Schlippenbach’s characteristic solos cum accompaniment that bridge the gap between both bands, especially when reed extravagance is highlighted.

Both woodwind players widen the playing field with distinctive slurs and snorts, after the initial Brötzmann renal explosion commences the onslaught. Shortly after the primary statement though, Parker’s trio takes centrestage. Mixing the saxman’s slurring, quacking counter tones and irregular vibrations with the pianist’s contrasting keyboard dynamics and high intensity fantasia of splayed notes, the section turns on Lytton’s pinpointed shattering clatter. Shadowing Parker -- his playing partner of 30-odd years -- the drummer uses cymbal snaps and snare rumbles to modulate the saxophonist’s timbres from elongated, repetitive snarls to the whorls and sprints of circular breathing.

Unexpectedly the pianist’s low frequency tremolos and descending runs not only reinforces a less programmed approach from Parker, but also help orchestrate a Free Jazz, rather than Free Music orientation. With the reedist pitch-vibrating and tongue-stopping, the three display triple counterpoint, each expressing complementary but very separate lines.

Von Schlippenbach’s resounding recoils from the piano innards test the instrument’s balanced tension and abrasively signal Brötzmann’s entry, first with a broken counter line to Parker, then almost immediately, with screaming altissimo and extenuated smeary honks. Power chording from the pianist also overcomes the faint thump of Parker’s bass, until Drake’s ratcheting snares and the pop of hollow percussion moves the sound into the other trio’s corner. Abrasively stroking his hourglass-shaped djembe and other surfaces with sandpaper-like swipes, Drake’s interlude, coupled with an interjection of metronomic arpeggios from the pianist, sets up the German reedist’s utilization of the tarogato for oddly accented, serpentine lines. Added to this is constant ascending pressure points from the bassist.

After Brötzmann’s distinctive choked screams and triple-tongued action finally brings out a split-second of screaming flattement from Parker’s sax, the German-American trio reconfigures itself. Drake’s African-oriented cavernous djembe reverberations serve as the perfect counterweight to the mellow, European-oriented chirrups Brötzmann produces from his clarinet. True to his reputation however, the German reedist is soon exploring the register above coloratura, making incursions to nephritic territory. When he quiets down though, hearty, iron-fingered pizzicato plucking is evident along with restrained portamento color.

Climax is reached as both saxophonists display their idiosyncratic tenor tones, the German snorting and the Briton flutter-tonguing. On top of the bassist’s shuffle spiccato and Drake’s cross sticking, they draw closer together, ejaculating screaming overtones that wouldn’t have been out of place in the militant days of 1968. Egged on by

dynamic patterns from Von Schlippenbach, the two echo one another’s note-placement in the instant composition’s penultimate minutes, with the finale a cross patterning of the pianist’s cadenzas and restrained breaths from the saxophones that fade to dead silence.

Subsequent tumultuous applause characterizes how exciting the ride has been, with only crotchety reviewers eager for more distinct trio interaction.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. The Bishop’s Move

Personnel: Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, tarogato, a-clarinet); Alexander Von Schlippenbach (piano); William Parker (bass); Paul Lytton (drums and percussion); Hamid Drake (drums, djembe and percussion)

March 28, 2005

RAPHE MALIK QUARTET

Last Set: Live at the 1369 Jazz Club
Boxholder BXH 042

BRÖTZMANN CLARINET PROJECT
Berlin Djungle
Atavistic Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP 246CD

Getting an understanding of the situation for committed free improvisers in Europe as opposed to the United States in the mid-1980s is pretty obvious when listening to these two live CDs, recorded about two months apart, both of which happen to have William Parker in the bass chair.

In early November 1984, German reedist Peter Brötzmann put together an international, all-star, 11-piece “Clarinet Project” for a special concert in a Berlin theatre as part of that city’s Jazzfest. Beside himself the clarinetists were Tony Coe from England, Louis Sclavis from France, East German Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky and J. D. Parran and John Zorn from the U.S. But that’s not all. The ensemble also included Japanese trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, East German Johannes Bauer and Briton Alan Tomlinson on trombones, with British drummer Tony Oxley supplying the bottom along with Parker. By all accounts the one lengthy piece was welcomed by the audience.

Across the ocean in Boston, hometown boy trumpeter Raphe Malik was doing a series of local club dates with a trio filled out by Parker and drummer Syd Smart. This CD, recorded at Cambridge’s 1369 Jazz Club, is particularly notable, since the trio was joined by pioneering New Thing tenor saxophonist Frank Wright in his only Boston-area gig. A long-time expatriate and Paris resident, Wright died in 1990. Here too the audience is enthusiastic, but you get the feeling that for most Bostonians -- heck, Americans -- this performance could be dismissed as just another club date by players too stubborn to adopt the fashionable fusion or neo-con styles of the time.

Unsurprisingly -- for pertinent pure improv is about a lot more than in-the-moment fashion and audience accessibility -- both performances feature considerable musical values that recommend them.

Take LAST SET for instance. Undeterred by the fact that this was just another club date, Malik, Wright, Parker and Smart give their all. Maybe they didn’t know how to improvise any other way. Wright especially is so caught in the moment that when he’s not forcing out emotional reed riffs he vocalizes quasi-verbal exhortations during the others’ solos.

This mostly tales place on “Companions #2”, the almost 30-minute centrepiece of the disc. Performed hell-bent-for-leather, it shows that neither front-line partner had lost any efficacy from his so-called 1960s (Wright) or 1970s (Malik) prominence.

From the beginning, Wright slurs and slides and growls and overblows, putting R&B-flavored mid-range vibrated snorts and deeper-pitched honks into his solo. As he mutates variations of the blaring theme, he masticates sounds from the lowest section of his horn’s bow up to the cork attached to his mouthpiece. Malik’s broken octave accompaniment converges with rapid, spiky triplets and sprightly hide-and-seek timbres.

As the trumpeter solos, Wright, caught up in the moment, begins a weird sort of Free Jazz style vocalizing filled with mumbled asides, Bronx cheers and lip trumpet action. Behind him Parker’s speedy arco line reaches a sul ponticello crescendo, while Smart, who labors as a public school teacher as well as playing as a valued local musician, uses his bass drum and sock cymbal to resonate heavy nerve beats and drum paradiddles.

One climax is reached as Malik spews machine-gun style triplets that are soon joined by Wright’s irregularly voiced tenor. As the saxman’s mid-tempo variations on the theme turn to variations on variations -- featuring only a few R&B snorts -- Malik come up with a separate, but complementary theme of sweet, high-pitched grace notes and some bugle-call intimations. Swaying spiccato from the bassist slow the tune down for the finale with splattered triplets from Malik serving as the coda.

Featuring heraldic trumpeting from Malik, double-tongued fanfares and the odd satisfied grunt from Wright, “Sad C”, the first track, is more of the same. However, “Chaser” the final number is an exercise in freebop, which judging from its title, may be a contrafact, with a new head superimposed upon the existing set of changes from Monk’s “Straight, No Chaser”.

Wright’s influences are blusier than bop, however, and his slurred pitch and wide vibrato encourages Malik to sound plunger-focused theme variations as Parker walks and Smart plays a shuffle. Ever heard finger-popping Free Jazz? Here is it in volume. Soon the reedist is snorting raucous riffs over and over again as Malik shrills rubato broken chords in tandem with him. Pedal point chortles and bubbling colored air confirm that the band is still in free territory, but the audience reacts as if it was in attendance at a James Brown performance.

With three times the brass capability and six times the reed power, Brötzmann and company’s polyphony has much more volume but about the same amount of energy as Malik’s quartet on its single almost 50-minute piece. Strangely for a clarinet showcase, the CD begins with a Scottish bagpipe-type air from Brötzmann’s tarogoto that’s quickly joined by the wavering pitch of the other reeds, including Sclavis’ wiggling bass clarinet.

Using tongue slaps for emphasis, the theme’s first development leaves the rhythm section to cleave to the bottom as the horns increase the volume while spurting squeaks and trills. One quarter of the way through, the brass finally asserts itself, with elephant-like trumpeting plus hippo-like snorts and snores from the trombone. Cutting through the responding reed pitches are oddball, vocalized static and whistles, probably courtesy of Zorn’s clarinet mouthpieces. Playing entire passages in ear-splitting altissimo, he alternates harsh raspberries, duck-like quacks and plush toy squeaky timbres. Oxley’s anvil-like bass drum blows and clip-clop cymbal tempos keep things on an even keel until a parlando trombone solo, possibly from Bauer, rouses the audience’s applause.

As Parker’s strums and Oxley’s rhythmic power reins in the jagged peaks and valleys of the horn lines, one sibilant romantic tone supersedes the others. Probably from the clarinet of Coe, whose experience encompasses studio and commercial big band work as well as freer episodes, it provides a moderating influence on the contrapuntal discord around him that starts to resemble ornithological mealtime. With the muted ‘bones supplying rubato counterpoint, the reeds form quivering accordion-like harmonies leading to a finale of sky-high honks and twitters.

The bassist’s screechy sul ponticello lines and the drummer’s irregular patterning on cow bell, wood block and ride cymbal seem merely an afterthought or solo reward for yeoman accompaniment service. Recapitulating the beginning, Brötzmann reintroduces the tarogato and attempts, on pure lung power, to go one-on-one with Oxley. Percussion strength barely triumphs, but only because a posse of other reeds joins in for a postlude of polytonal split tones.

A singular experience BERLIN DJUNGLE produces some memorable textures and must be admired for Bötzmann’s decision to broaden his compositional range. Yet LAST SET also proves that plenty of good music was also being produced far from the spotlight, and which -- like this session -- has only been preserved by happenstance.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Berlin: 1. What A Day First Part 2. What A Day Second Part

Personnel: Berlin: Toshinori Kondo (trumpet); Johannes Bauer and Alan Tomlinson (trombones); Peter Brötzmann (clarinet, tenor saxophone and tarogato); Tony Coe, Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky, J. D. Parran (clarinets); Louis Sclavis (clarinet and bass clarinet); John Zorn (clarinet and mouthpieces); William Parker (bass); Tony Oxley (drums)

Track Listing: Last 1. Sad C 2. Companions #2 3. Chaser

Personnel: Last: Raphe Malik (trumpet); Frank Wright (tenor saxophone and voice); William Parker (bass); Syd Smart (drums)

February 28, 2005

B.E.E.K. (BRÖTZMANN/ELLIS/ENEIDI/KRALL)

Live at the Spruce Street Forum
Botticelli 1015

Marco Eneidi is a brave musician.

When it comes to improvising, the diminutive, Bay area alto saxophonist will match his skills against anyone’s. Which is why LIVE AT THE SPRUCE STREET FORUM is such an explosive document. The five longish tracks feature Eneidi facing off with a reedman universally acknowledged since the 1960s as one of the most ferocious on his instruments: German saxist and clarinetist Peter Brötzmann.

Aided and abetted by Vancouver-born, California-based bassist Lisle Ellis and New York drummer Jackson Krall and recorded in San Diego, the CD is a caterwauling yawp of a session. It proves how in the right circumstances it only takes four committed improvisers to make enough characteristic sounds to create their own version of John Coltrane’s ASCENSION, which featured 11 musicians or Brötzmann’s MACHINE GUN which featured eight.

In the years since he helmed that session in 1968, Brötzmann has played with nearly every major figure in international improv. Ellis has worked with the likes of Vancouver pianist Paul Plimley and upstate New York’s Joe McPhee, while Krall is drummer of choice for pianist Cecil Taylor. As for Eneidi, fire-breathing tenor men don’t phase him: he had a longtime relationship with the late Oakland, Calif.-based reedist Glenn Spearman.

Here, hard and heavy reed textures snap all over the place, with great hairy honks from the tenor meeting up with rough, flutter tongued altissimo pitches and irregular vibrations from the alto. Yet, even as the split tones, foghorn honks and glottal punctuation combines into an elongated scream, you realize that there’s more to this creation than exuding pure emotion. Variations of beauty and order endure, along with historical references.

Sometime during the first tune, for instance, Brötz spews out a phrase identical to what Albert Ayler would have sounded during the latter’s ESP-Disk heyday. Aylerian suggestions peek from among other reed punishment elsewhere, while consciously or not, one of the final phrases ejaculated by the veteran closely resembles the connective riff on the original “Machine Gun”.

Promulgating broken counterpoint along with his darting, airy note splatters, Eneidi often works himself and the older saxist into polyphonic and polyharmonic double counterpoint. With bell-shaking screeching obbligatos spilling from both horns simultaneously, there are points where the freak-note tag-teaming resemble that of altoist Marion Brown and tenorist Archie Shepp or altoist John Tchicai and tenorist Pharoah Sanders on “Ascension”.

Unlike Young Lion recreations, those inferences are just that. The two reedists aren’t out to emulate anyone -- not even, in Brötzmann’s case, his earlier self. His clarinet work, which steeplechases from moody chalumeau flattement to trilling aviary undulations proves that here. Meanwhile, neither Brown nor Tchicai, Eneidi’s game plan can encompass a sudden lucid balladic line cut with a bit of steel, as he does on the second tune, or elsewhere where he shreds upper partials with intense triple tonguing. Swaying lines, he can create trumpety tones from his reed as easily as Brötz forces out wide vibrato tongue stops and deep-in-the-body-tube snorts.

Ellis and Krall aren’t left behind either. When he can be heard clearly from within the cacophony, the former rarely walks, but instead displays timbres that include pacific pizzicato chording and a solo that moves from stopping the string and stroking the bass’s ribs to accelerating the rhythmic impetus.

Krall reserves his brushes for the brief periods Ellis solos -- and he can surprise with a standard beat if need be. But most of the time he thumps out backbeats, ruffs and rattles, and equally valuably, exhibits a decisive resounding splat to signal the end of certain tracks.

Looking for excitement? The folks at the Spruce Street Forum would agree that with this CD you’ve come to the right place.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. No. 1 2. No. 2 3. No. 3 4. No. 4 5. No. 5

Personnel: Marco Eneidi (alto saxophone); Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet); Lisle Ellis (bass); Jackson Krall (drums)

January 10, 2005

PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET

Signs
Okkadisk OD 12048

MS4
PETER BRÖTZMANN CHICAGO TENTET
Images
Okkadisk OD 12047

More than five years after it was first organized, German reedist Peter Brötzmann’s mostly Chicago-populated Tentet has become a welcomed presence on the international improv scene.

In the tradition of the Globe Unity Orchestra -- of which Brötzmann was also a member -- the reed-heavy band plays long, involved compositions more concerned with spur of the moment interpretation than elaborate arrangements. Yet, as this matched set of live and studio material demonstrates, the 10-piece band actually sounds best when organized patterns and section work are added to the massed firepower.

Overall, the tentet is most impressive as a full-fledged band. Yet only Ken Vandermark takes full advantage of its varied colors on his more than 37-minute “All Things Being Equal” on IMAGES. Most ambitious and the longest tune on either disc, its overture is made up of gathered horn cadenzas, resonating hand drumming from Hamid Drake and a walking bass line from Kent Kessler. Soon second drummer Michael Zerang pounds out a counter rhythm and, in sections, the brass and reeds pile on top of one another polytonally.

Irregular backing figures from the band, give Joe McPhee’s trumpet the space to push out higher notes with flutter tongue ornamentation. Next up, saxist Mars Williams sprays a circular set of splayed, staccato notes before the theme is reprised for the first time. The split tone sopranino solo continues abstractly -- falling from pinched altissimo to unrefined low timbres -- as the dual drummer pitter-patter and pop behind him. Then, from among the polyphonic harmonies appear sul tasto tremolos from cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, muted wah-wah trumpet counterpoint, and a gentle pastoral eclogue from the others.

Trombonist Jeb Bishop introduces rubato slurs that bounce off trumpet trills and spiccato sweeps from the strings. Blowing harshly, he gets most of his individualism from echoes. Following is a series of tongue slaps plus key percussion and glottal punctuation from Swede Mats Gustafsson or Vandermark on baritone. Adding lip-smacking verbal tones to ponticello bass movements and hand drumming, this orchestral formation adds up to the DKV trio writ large. Then, trilled slurs from the trumpeter, snaky chalumeau lines from Brötzmann’s clarinet and ride cymbal patter from Zerang are added.

The clarinet’s spittle squeaks soon meet up with baritone snorts and staccato interpolations from the brass. Pushed to a quicker tempo by two drum kits’ rough smears and irregular flutter-tonguing invigorate the reeds as Bishop’s slide ranges over the thematic variations. The climax refreshes all concerned, as horns, percussion and strings meld into a miasmic legato howl, with an Ornette Coleman-like folksy finale arriving with polyphonic counterpoint.

Inspirational in their own way, the other tunes pale in comparison to this one, with the exception of Brötzmann’s title track on SIGNS. But even here, the piece that’s almost exactly half the length of “All Things Being Equal” is most convincing because most of the players get to strut their stuff. With polyharmonic and polytonal passages reminiscent of John Coltrane’s “Ascension” or Brötzmann’s “Machine Gun”, there are instances of the band members improvising every which way as their dissonant textures mass then explode -- a musical foliage of smears, burrs, cries, hoots and snorts. Electrified -- but playing acoustically -- Lonberg-Holm rampages out flat-picked notes as the horns join for hocketing, squealing pantonality.

A double-tongued alto solo from Williams vibrates its way into R&B territory, trailed by battering percussion and stentorian runs from the two baritone saxists. Finally, after Brötzmann snakes out some nasal tarogato notes complete with glissandi, chesty-toned fortissimo reeds circle back to riff counterthemes and the cellist scrapes his strings as if he was severing them at the bridge.

Individual passages stand out elsewhere, but all the other tunes are made up of little more than isolated passages from different instruments with no attempt to bond them into a whole. Impressive they may be, but when soloists are heard a cappella or as duos in isolation, they raise the question of what the other band members were doing -- and why they were present at all. The other glaring oversight here is proper identification of soloists. Much of the description above is based on knowledge and guesswork.

Followers of any of the musicians may rate these sessions more highly -- and there’s certainly nothing second-rate or offensive about them. It merely seems that with the massed talents on display from Chicago and Europe -- not to mention upstate New York’s McPhee -- much more could have been done in terms of arrangements and organization.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Signs: 1. Bird notes (for Bengt Nordström) 2. Six Gun Territory 3. Signs

Track Listing: Images: 1. All Things Being Equal 2. Images

Personnel: Signs and Images: Joe McPhee (trumpet); Jeb Bishop (trombone); Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, A clarinet, tarogato); Mars Williams (sopranino, alto and tenor saxophones); Ken Vandermark(tenor and baritone saxophones, Bb clarinet); Mats Gustafsson (tenor and baritone saxophones); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello); Kent Kessler (bass); Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake (drums)

December 6, 2004

CAPOTE

Avenue X
Ninth World Music NWM 029 CD

THE WILD MANS BAND
The Darkest River
Ninth World Music NWM 027 CD

Difficult to imagine, but there are times during AVENUE X when the consolidated sounds of the Capote quartet are so harsh and brutal that in comparison the Wild Mans Band (WMB)’s output appears as restrained and serene as that of the Modern Jazz Quartet.

Not meant as a criticism, this state of affairs merely points out how effectively the vocabulary of pioneering fire-breathers like WMB’s reedman Peter Brötzmann and guest guitarist Pierre Dørge has permeated the fabric of modern improv. From the 1960s on, in the German saxophonist’s case and from the 1970s for the Danish guitarist, they and others proved that noise, speed and volume could just as easily be adapted to jazz as rock music.

The challenge then was having the taste and skill to deal with these add-ons. Subtlety may be lacking from both bands, but both make a go of not burying the improvisations under heavy metal.

A co-op effort between Brötzmann and Danes Peter Friis Nielsen on electric bass and Peter Ole Jørgensen on drums, WMB has a guest on each of its previous releases. Dørge, known for leading the New Jungle Orchestra is featured on this, the band’s third CD, but he played individually with the other three in concerts as early as 1989. His fiery lines and attainable effects mix with the saxman’s nephritic outbursts in the front line, while the bassist and drummer contribute what they can.

Reminding listeners that more Black Metal bands than jazzbos come from Scandinavia, Capote’s molten output could at times be termed Punk Improv or Heavy Metal Jazz, How does No Wave Improv sound?

Intimal to its sound is twin guitars of Copenhagen’s Jørgen Teller and Englishman Rex Casswell. Teller’s background includes what he terms “electroacoustics, black rock, free-form, improvisation, African guitar and rhythm, computer-music, drone-guitar and microtonality”. Casswell has been part of improv rock bands like Bark! and Stock, Hausen & Walkman.

Rounding out the quartet is American freeform alto saxophonist Jeffrey Morgan whose improv associates have included Britons, guitarist Keith Rowe and drummer Paul Lytton as well as German synthesizer manipulator Joker Nies. Drumming is handled by P.O. Jørgens, a member of Cockpit Music, a local band that plays in a similar style. Jørgens uses the name Jørgensen in WMB and seems to revel in the confusion this creates.

There’s nothing refined about Capote. With almost the same instrumentation as the Dave Clark 5, the four race through nine tunes in less than 44 minutes, with no more pauses or downtime than the Ramones brought to their oeuvre. Although there are some intimation of turntable scratching and vinyl hisses on the first and some subsequent numbers, this above all is a guitar band the same way as Wishbone Ash was.

Overall, the most common licks are the irregular pulsation of feedback-laden strings and amplifiers. There’s enough shrieking guitar feedback to impress Merzbow followers, including noisy, buzzing textures and echoes coupled with phaser drones and buzzes that jump from axe to axe. With the drummer’s power pushing right behind them, the two fretmen strum, drone or cascade distorted guitar lines. Without pausing they apply metal bars, capos, e-bows and other implements to the strings to produce acicular tones -- and don’t forget the circuit-breaking buzzes that come from the amps -- plus judicious use of the delay pedal.

One person who does have to pause for breath, though, is saxist Morgan, Most of the time his growling obbligatos, traffic horn squeaks, snaky sax trills, smears and flattement are much closer to Albert Ayler than say, Paul Desmond. Less so-called jazzy than most of his other sessions, at points here his work seems to fit in the mold of No Waver James Chance -- if Chance had more technique and command of his instrument. Among techniques on show are reed chomping and note retching plus inchoate screams. Throughout, his tones are as jagged as barbed wire and as piercing as if they’re being pushed through a strainer.

Jørgens hold up his end with noisy textures that include internal squeaks, heavy press rolls, smashed cymbals and general beat mongering. But true to his improv origins there’s never the mindless pounding you associate with rock music.

On THE DARKEST RIVER, he under his homonymic percussion name -- offers drags, wiggle ratamacues, bounces and rebounds. There are ride cymbal shivers on show and sometimes he almost produces a Native American pow-wow beat. Meanwhile Nielsen maintains the shifting pulse with some rumbling pulsation, buzzes, double stops or thumb pops as needed.

Dørge moves from speedy jazz-rock licks, a fuzztone buzz reminiscent of the beginning of “Day Tripper” and guitar hero histrionics to strategies that would more comfortably fit in the improv world. He creates refractive textures with his phaser and often colors the tunes with polyphonic smears. He strokes high up on the fret board and under the bridge for maximum spikiness and in the penultimate minutes of one tune unleashes some sliding blues-based licks.

Showpiece for the CD is the more than 19-minute “Bioluminescence”. Slower-moving, almost balladic, it centres on the saxman’s snaky ney-like alto playing and slurred, shivering guitar chords that could easily come from an oud. Here Brötzmann snakes his way around the others’ parts, intersecting, but not colliding with the bassist’s steady pulse, the drummer’s thumping cross rhythms and the guitarist’s Arabic-sounding strums. True to form, he sounds out pitch vibrations -- overblowing into the altissimo range -- as well as a steady, renal tone which brings out polyrhythmic cross sticking from Jørgensen and finger picking from Dørge.

This is just a momentary respite, however. “Dead Water,” the almost nine-minute blow-out that follows, has Brötzmann, on woody taragot, double-tonguing, slurring, crying and overblowing as per usual, expelling sound as much from his belly and bowels as his throat and lungs. Dørge too turns up his volume knobs and pedals to meet the saxman’s ejaculations with broken counterpoint of jarring pulse, finally downshifting to feedback drones.

Overall, Longtime Brötzmann followers may link this version of WMB to the co-op Last Exit of the 1980s. Nielsen may be a better bassist than Bill Laswell, but Dørge and Jørgensen, respectively, aren’t the individualists the late Sonny Sharrock and Ronald Shannon were.

In truth, when bands such as Capote have cornered the market on aggression, Brötzmann’s playing with the WMB is more engaging than it was in the 1980s.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Avenue: 1. Exigency 2. Somatization 3. Antenna 4. Heavy pitch 5. Radar 6. Zita 7. Tolerance 8.Gletscher 9. Ataxia

Personnel: Avenue: Jeffrey Morgan (tenor saxophone); Rex Casswell and Jørgen Teller (guitars); P.O. Jørgens (drums)

Track Listing Darkest: 1. Eastern Messenger 2. Old Mens Pleasure 3. The Darkest River 4. Aeolus 5. Nostromo 6. Bioluminescence 7. Dead Water 8. Rafting

Personnel: Darkest: Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, bass clarinet and taragot); Pierre Dørge (guitar); Peter Friis Nielsen (electric bass); Peter Ole Jørgensen (drums)

November 22, 2004

REVOLUTIONARY ENSEMBLE

The Psyche
Mutable Music 17514-2

PETER BRÖTZMANN
FMP 130
Atavistic Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP244CD

Reissues of two hard-to-find LPs from the mid-1970s point out the differences that had developed between European and American improvisers even at that early date. While both approaches are equally valid, it’s ironic to consider that at this point the Europeans were catapulting harsh, screaming textures reminiscent of the New Thing’s beginning, while it’s the Americans who were more concerned with form and structure in their compositions. Almost 30 years later, the situation is almost completely reversed, though the participants here are mostly committed to their original vision.

Recent reports have had German reedman Peter Brötzmann mellower then he was when this example of European powerhouse improv was released and quickly went out of print. There’s no sign of moderation on this disc, recorded by the saxman and his trio of Dutch drummer Han Bennink and Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove.

Bennink too, when he’s not indulging in schtick, varies his playing a bit more nowadays -- he doesn’t scream at the top of his lungs or bang every bit of junk percussion in sight as he did in 1973. Only Van Hove, who plays both piano and celeste here is as moderate and melodic as he is today, He left the trio, Van Hove says, after he realized he often couldn’t hear his own playing underneath Bennink’s percussion barrage. Still, his present-day, carefully focused projects undertaken with simpatico players like British saxist John Butcher and German trombonist Johannes Bauer, will never be confused with mainstream jazz -- or Van Hove with Oscar Peterson.

On the other hand, the Revolutionary Ensemble was the progenitor of string-focused bands that would follow in its wake both in Europe and North American. True, viola/violist Leroy Jenkins now spends much of his time writing chamber music and in solo performances. But on his own or in groups with saxophonist Joseph Jarman, among others, he still brings the same fire to his playing as he did as an early members of Chicago’s Association for the Advancement of Creative Music.

Bassist Sirone, who is both sure-footed and unconventional in his soloing on this nearly lost 1975 session, works in post-bop groups, usually in Europe. Percussionist Jerome Cooper, who prefers playing solo, adds odd metre drumming and high frequency pianism to THE PSYCHE, utilizing the sort of rhythmic thrust that’s anathema to the more precious string-driven improv bands of today.

Ripping through 10 tunes in less than 40 minutes, the Brötzmann crew makes it clear that they’re ripping a hole in the jazz tradition, even if they figuratively have to do it with their bare hands. The three with others had already recorded LPs under Brötzmann’s name with such unlovely titles as MACHINE GUN, FUCK DE BOERE, NIPPLES and BALLS, and in this last gasp of 1960s radicalism were still going to épater les bourgeois.

Take “Konzert für 2 klarinetten”, for instance. A series of off-putting yells rents the aural surface at times, as if the shrill, ear splitting variations in the clarinets’ highest register from Brötzmann and Bennink wasn’t enough of an aural affront. And “Paukenhändschen im blaubeerenwald” ends with a shout from the drummer and a blaring honk from the saxman. It begins with steady snorts from Brötzmann’s horn and Van Hove sounding an accompanying line on the celeste that morphs into a cousin of “Ain’t She Sweet”. Brötzmann holds low notes on his bass sax for such an extended period that he could be prefiguring late 1990s electronica. Meanwhile Bennink revels in his primitive percussionist, smashing all items in his roomful of percussion as hard as possible over and over again, so that even non-resonating surfaces resonate.

On “Nr. 6”, which is the ninth track -- go figure -- Brötzmann’s initial reed figure appears to be played at the top of his lungs, with his sax bell pressed against a sheet of metal. Van Hove uses a tune-up trick to get him to moderate -- the pianist pumps out a high frequency rapid tremolos to counter the reedist stop-and-go rhythms. Finally Brötzmann ejaculates chorus after chorus of overblown split tones as Bennink rolls wooden stick on the studio floor and growls from deep inside his throat.

Maybe the seeds of Van Hove’s later dissatisfaction in such uncompromising noise assaults can be noted among the musical thunderstorms the two Bs bring to the disc. At various time the pianist produces low-key pastoral timbres that wouldn’t be out of place at a chamber music recital, relaxed, walking bass expostulations, choruses alive with a Spanish tinge, and a descending chorus on “ Nr. 4” that could have come from Lennie Tristano.

Some of those performances may have been conceived of as burlesque in 1973. But when Van Hove later compared what he was playing with Bennink’s caveman yells and sandpaper hard runs and Brötzmann’s solos that suggest he was excising his spleen through his horn’s bell, the piano man may have had second thoughts.

They don’t make ‘em like they used to, and if your tastes run to hell-bent-for-leather improvising you won’t want to miss out on FMP 0130.

A similar situation exists with THE PSYCHE, the Revolutionary Ensembles fabled lost LP, put out on its own RE label in 1975 and only briefly available, mostly in Europe, and never re-pressed. By this point Jenkins, Cooper and Sirone had evolved into three musicians outstandingly attuned to one another’s strength. In the spirit of true democracy each contributed a composition to the date.

Sirone’s “Hu-man” is mostly a forum to show off the members’ individual talents. Made up of the standard theme-variations-reprise of theme, the bassman uses the middle section to slide from walking bass lines to strums, slaps and individual note pinpointing. Meanwhile Cooper rumbles along with constant cymbal accents and Jenkins squirts out elongated lines, triple stopping and shuffle bowing.

More substantial is Jenkins’ “Collegno” (sic), named for a playing technique that uses the wood of the bow on the strings. Underlying the entire performance is an ostinato of scraped and scuffed tones created by Sirone. At times the droning pressure become thicker, with the bassist’s scuffed and scraped textures creating a distinctive thematic grouping. On top of this -- almost definitely not col legno -- the violinist embroiders an ethereal, staccato melody, while the drummer produces duple and single beats. A crescendo of swelling string sounds ends the piece.

Showpiece at almost 26½ minutes -- or more than half of the CD’s length -- is Cooper’s “Invasion”. Filled with dramatic interplay as the three divide successive themes into smaller and smaller motives, included are transformations and adaptations of techniques and styles. Mixing chain ratting and snare beats, Cooper introduces steady syncopation from his cymbals. Joined by Sirone’s walking bass, the theme soon splinters as the bassist first strums, then double stops harder pitches. Similarly, Jenkins shuffle bows a long lined tremolo that leeches into viola d’amore territory.

Midway through, Cooper unveils low frequency, meandering piano vibrations and circular semi-tones. Soon he’s engaged in a prolonged fantasia that speeds up the tempo to such an extent that he enters player-piano territory. Sirone proves that he’s able to produce as many timbres with his four strings as the piano can, then downshifts to bass clef timekeeping.

That motive seems to be a clue for Jenkins to reenter, scratching at higher pitches, then exhibiting a shaking side vibrato with the bow skewed in such a way to get both harmonic forward motion and multiphoinics. Sirone strums his strings as Cooper’s cymbal chiming reappears. With the viola squealing out shrill pitches, plus the snares and toms banging, rhythmic movement rests with the bass. Then the piece just ends.

An appreciation that the journey is just as important as the destination is needed to fully understand The PSYCHE. Still anyone usually attracted by the Revolutionary Ensemble, Leroy Jenkins or merely fine, uncomplicated improvising will be impressed by this date.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 130: 1. For Donaueschingen ever 2. Konzert für 2 klarinetten 3. Nr. 7 4. Wir haben uns folgendes überlegt 5. Paukenhändschen im blaubeerenwald 6. Nr. 9 7. Gere bij 8. Nr. 4 9. Nr. 6 10. Donaueschingen For Ever

Personnel: 130: Peter Brötzmann (clarinet, alto, tenor, baritone and bass saxophones); Fred Van Hove (piano and celeste); Han Bennink (drums, khene, rhythm-box, self-made clarinet, gachi, oe-oe, tins, home-made junk, elong, dhung, kaffir piano, dhung-dkar and voice)

Track Listing: Psyche: 1. Invasion 2. Hu-man 3. Collegno

Personnel: Psyche: Leroy Jenkins (violin and viola); Sirone (bass); Jerome Cooper (drums and piano)

June 21, 2004

GIANLUIGI TROVESI OTTETTO

Fugace
ECM 1827

GLOBE UNITY ORCHESTRA
Globe Unity 2002
Intakt CD 086

One potential horror comedians are always joking about is a world where the transportation schedules would be set by the Italians and the restaurants run by the British and Germans.

As humorous as this may sound as a situation, these CDs by mid-sized (eight- and nine-piece) bands shows that remarkable sounds can still result if countrymen act antithetically to their clichéd national characteristics.

FUGACE finds eight legendarily anarchistic Italians settling down for 16 short, arranged improvisations that touch on a variety of genres. Conversely, GLOBE UNITY 2002 features nine supposedly restrained Britons and Germans creating almost 74 minutes of some of the most cacophonous hullabaloo since John Coltrane and 10 other improvisers recorded ASCENSION in 1965.

As a matter of fact, Globe Unity, (the band) has always been in the tradition of all-out passionate expression that characterized 1960s aggregations like the Jazz Composers Orchestra, with the added fillip of being international. Over the years since the band’s first LP in 1966, membership has swollen to a high of 19, with American, Italian, Dutch and Polish musicians included, until it officially disbanded in 1986.

This one-time, live concert reunion 15 years later finds most of the longtime Globers on hand and confirms that the spirit and excitement the band engendered in its lifetime still exists. As well, 30 years on, a serene quantity has crept into some of the playing.

Leader Alexander von Schlippenbach, for instance, may begin the proceedings with intense, emotional, Romantic arpeggios, but during the course of the one long piece here he’ll relax into almost conventional jazz club comping and fills. Then when it comes time for his extended solo, his playing seems more bop-like and connected than the style of his first influence, Thelonious Monk. He uses careful voicing and portamento to glide across the keyboard. Building up tension in the Free Jazz sense with serpentine chords and echoing vibrations, his swiftness can resemble that of a player piano. Yet his unaccompanied coda is near pastoral, well modulated and definitely two-handed.

Trumpeter and, flugelhornist Manfred Schoof, who started off as a German version of a so-called Progressive jazzman, reverts to form in his solo spots. At one point he reveals long-lined patterned and focused grace notes that evolve to note-perfect brassy triplets, at another builds up mellow flugelhorn filigree, which when combined with the backing orchestral figures recall MILES AHEAD.

Others have intensified the way they first played 30 years ago. Evan Parker offers a five-minute plus exhibition of louder and softer circular breathing from his soprano sax, that appears to have an unmistakable bagpipe echo. Meantime fellow Briton, trombonist Paul Rutherford, growls and mumbles and rants within his trombone bell, with his snorts and Bronx cheers finally calling forth dampening metallic rim shot action and cymbal crashes from the dual percussionists. His direct musical descendent, German trombonist Johannes Bauer, also exhibits some double-tongued slurs backed with only piano accompaniment.

Dissonance, in all its ear-wrenching glory still inhabits the playing of the two remaining horn men though: Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky on alto saxophone, clarinet and flute and Peter Brötzmann on tenor saxophone, tarogato and clarinet. One reedist -- though likely not Parker -- ejaculates some split-tone altissimo squeaks near the beginning of the extended piece, the likes of which haven’t been heard since the heyday of Giuseppi Logan. Much later, peeping tarogato timbres meet up with woody bass clarinet tones, arching from dog-whistle to bird trilling territory.

Then there’s a point just past midway where the “Ascension”-style total band hubbub slackens to expose a protracted series of screeches and multiphonic blasts from the tenormen. The yells and applause from the audience makes it appear that for it, this was the highpoint equivalent of Paul Gonsalves’ protracted solo on Duke Ellington’s “Diminuendo and Crescendo in Blues” at the 1956 Newport Jazz Festival.

As all this is going on, the proper tempo for clangorous explosions and feather light interludes is provided by the Pauline duo on percussion -- England’s Paul Lytton and Germany’s Paul Lovens.

Trovesi’s Ottetto features two drummers as well, but that’s about the only symmetry between the two sessions. Old enough -- he was born in 1944 near Bergamo -- to be part of the Globe Unity generation, multi-reedist Trovesi mixed his jazz with studio work earlier in his career. Part of the first generation of Southern European musicians to assert themselves internationally, Trovesi is known for his folklore-tinged work with trumpeter Pino Minafra, and membership in the all-star Italian Instabile Orchestra, which also includes ex-Globe Unity trumpeter Enrico Rava.

Like his other octet sessions though, FUGACE resides in a space of its own, where traditional Italian operatic drama coexists with improvisation, and where the references include veteran local comic Totò as well as Louis Armstrong. Thus on the three-part “Totò nei Caraibi”, as the pizzicato plucking of the three string players suggests a cartoon cat sneaking across the horizon, other sounds form the band reference a funeral march and echo calypsos.

In the same way, “Ramble” begins with a note-perfect Dixieland emulation with the drummers exercising their kits with ratamacues and a clip-clop rhythm like duple Baby Dodds, as Trovesi on clarinet makes like Baby’s older brother -- and Armstrong associate -- Johnny. But trumpeter Massimo Greco reaches for augmented notes too modern for Satchmo, the clarinet is soon trilling in a modernistic folk style reminiscent of Jimmy Giuffre, and you’d never hear Marco Remondini’s arco cello slices anywhere in Trad Jazz. Blasts from trombonist Beppe Caruso, who leads his own fine brass band, form a countermelody that doubles and triples the tempo until the end.

In contrast to the Globe Unity veterans, the reedist’s is a younger band, made up in the main of musicians who have played with him for about a decade. With Remondini and percussionist Fluvio Maras adding electronics to the mix the Trovesi Eight proffers some unique textures, including a series of linking interludes that sound as if they were created on an electrified harpsichord that snuck in from a Yardbirds session. Thus while Trovesi may sometimes echo Benny Goodman and the unison string section get a bit overwrought in the 1,001 strings tradition, plenty of other slants arise as well.

“Blues and West” for instance, starts off with enough reverb from the electronica and electric bass slaps plus monochromic drumming to make it sound like a rock band has invaded the studio. In between riffing horns, Trovesi on alto creates some cosmic bop-inflected squeals and Greco plays a soaring, slurred trumpet line. “Canto di lavoro” goes in the opposite direction. It starts off with an Armstrong-like trumpet cadenza, introduces chalumeau clarinet trills and finishes with a sound that ping-pongs from outer-space whistles from the electronics, and someone, somehow -- perhaps the top strings of the electric bass -- producing a quivering Jimi Hendrix-like electric guitar distortion.

Massed horn riffs often appear to be half banda and half James Brown’s horn section, Trovesi’s split tone can often take on a distinctive Arabic inflection and the dual backbeat, if from hand drums, can be as much Savannah as Sardinia.

Improvised music has become such an all-encompassing category that a group can perform in a variety of ways to produce outstanding music, despite national clichés. Globe Unity and the Ottetto demonstrate two excellent versions of these methods.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Fugace: 1. As strange as a ballad 2. Sogno d’Orfeo African Triptych: 3. Wide Lake 4. Scarlet Dunes 5. Western Dream 6. Canto di lavoro 7. Clumsy dancing of the fat bird 8. Siparietto I 9. Blues and West 10. Siparietto II 11. Il Domatore 12. Ramble 13. Siparietto III 14. Fugace 15. Siparietto IV 16. Totò nei Caraibi

Personnel: Fugace: Massimo Greco (trumpet, electronics); Beppe Caruso (trombone); Gianluigi Trovesi (alto saxophone, piccolo, alto clarinets); Marco Remondini (cello, electronic); Roberto Bonati (bass); Marco Micheli (bass, electric bass); Fluvio Maras (percussion, electronics); Vittorio Marinoni (drums)

Track Listing: Globe: 1. Globe Unity 2002

Personnel: Globe: Manfred Schoof (trumpet, flugelhorn); Paul Rutherford and Johannes Bauer (trombones); Ernst-Ludwig Petrowsky (alto saxophone, clarinet, flute); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, tarogato, clarinet); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano); Paul Lovens and Paul Lytton (drums)

December 1, 2003

THOMAS BORGMANN/PETER BRÖTZMANN/WILLIAM PARKER/RASHIED BAKR

The Cooler Suite
GROB 539

Serendipitous accomplishment, this live quartet disc is one of those unplanned sessions that ends up being released when it’s discovered that the night’s work was better than anyone imagined.

Flushed with the go-for-broke excitement that characterizes the best Free Jazz, the CD is a cleaned up version of what was recorded over an a cheap ferro cassette of demos that German saxophonist Thomas Borgmann shoved into the mixing board one night in 1997. A DAT recorder wasn’t working.

The place was a now-defunct Manhattan dive called The Cooler and the dramatis personae the Münster-born, Berlin-based Borgmann on sopranino and tenor saxophones; Wupppertal’s Peter Brötzmann on alto and tenor saxophones and a-clarinet; plus two Americans: bassist William Parker and drummer Rashied Bakr, who together make up the rhythm section of Other Dimensions in Music. Brötz and Borg are also old buds; Parker has played often with Brötzmann; and Borgmann’s American associates are numerous, although excepting Bakr, who usually toils as a social worker.

Maybe because no one thought of this as anything other than a regular gig, the pressure was off for anything but creation of the music.

Beginning with a raw burst of glossolalia in Brötzmann’s distinctive reed-shredding style, the two, almost half-hour tracks develop as the saxman, seconded by Borgmann, pours on the power and is met by the equal power from Bakr and especially Parker. Due to another miscalculation, the bassist, plugged right into the mixing board, comes across so “hot” that at times his tugs, strums and reverberations threaten to submerge even Brötz’s improvising.

Not that can happen. Beginning with undulation of unalloyed screech, his reed work -- backed by a complementary counterline from the other tenor -- forces Parker to quadruple stop and the drummer to keep up a steady rat tat tat on his snares and a woodblock. Speaking of wood, Parker often seems to be sawing it as much as he plays on it, as he strokes and manipulates his instrument and the four strands of catgut mercilessly. After Brötz switches to clarinet, the piece become even more of a duet for a time with the saxman’s gangling chalumeau vibrations spurring the bassist to guitar-like strums, double stop up high near his pegs and walloping his strings foursquare.

Although Bergmann’s double-tongued trills on his sour, Eastern sounding sopranino try soon to mellow the proceedings, the others have none of it. Split-tones, honks and reed-biting obbligatos push Wuppertal’s finest further, so that he ends the piece shrieking like a horror movie werewolf, newly liberated from a dark cave. “Part 1” is all tension and no release.

“Part 2” continues in the same jugular vein, with Brötzmann’s renal squeals turning first to spetrofluctuation, then to nasty growls as the drums roll and ratasmascue and the bass timbres fluctuate from triple stopping to wooden board-like hammering. Abandoning timbres that resemble chalk scratching a blackboard, the clarinet and sopranino mix floating tones -- a half step apart -- until the rhythm section pulse reaches such a crescendo of musique brut that Brötz inserts the larger horn into his mouth again and enters stratospheric, ear-splitting territory. Blowing higher, harder and with enough diffuse notes so that his reed vibrations have vibrations, he brings Borgmann back into the mix as they combine into a weird harmony of blowing and honking. Ending is a single press roll from the drummer.

With the audience as pumped as you would hear at a Punk or Heavy Metal concert, THE COOLER SUITE shows that a quartet of men in their forties and fifties have to take back seats to no one when it comes to producing surges of white hot excitement.

It should be noted, though, that this is no audiophile recording. Besides the over-recording of Parker’s bass, the sound is sometimes unstable and cuts out for several seconds a couple of times. Like the Dizzy Gillespie-Charlie Christian sessions at Minton’s or Albert Ayler’s at Slugs, a decision has to be made here whether music or high fidelity is of paramount importance to you.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. The Cooler Suite Part 1 2. The Cooler Suite Part 2

Personnel: Thomas Borgmann (sopranino and tenor saxophones); Peter Brötzmann (alto and tenor saxophones, a-clarinet); William Parker (bass); Rashied Bakr (drums)

October 13, 2003

PETER BRÖTZMANN

More Nipples
Atavistic Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP236CD

Prime cuts of Peter Brötzmann and company at his most ferocious, the 40 minutes of music on this CD were literally forgotten until 2002 when FMP founder Jost Gebers discovered this cache of unreleased tapes in his archives.

Living up to the series title, the three tracks were recorded at the same 1969 session that produced NIPPLES (Atavistic/Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP 205 CD), one of the German saxophonist’s most distinctive early sessions, that itself was out-of-print for years until reissued in 2000. Unlike that disc, British saxophonist Evan Parker and guitarist Derek Bailey are only featured on the title track. The other two highlight the reedist’s quartet of the time, completed by Flemish pianist Fred Van Hove, the late German bassist Buschi Niebergall and Holland’s Han Bennink on drums and percussion.

Among the likely reasons that these tracks weren’t released at the time of recording is that in contrast to the original LP, the more than 17-minute tune with the two Englishmen sounds closer to certified, restrained BritImprov than the expected balls-to-the-walls Continental variety.

The top of the piece initially features rapid runs or laid back arco work from the bassist, rubato piano cadenzas, irresolute plinks and clinks from the guitarist and drumming that’s more shake and rattle than anything you would imagine from Bennink today. Van Hove’s flashing octave jumping and right-handed tremolo lines appear to share lead duties with Bailey’s flat-picking, with the others almost struggling to keep up. Only when the saxmen shows up does Niebergall assert himself with a buzzing output that takes on jagged, top-of-scale, violin-like qualities. Then Bennink, who could be making music with a collection of pots and pans -- so brassy is his sound -- starts to clatter away at greater volume, while Bailey retreats. Using Van Hove’s high-intensity arpeggios ranging over the keyboard as backing, Brötz and Parker make like an avant-garde Griff & Jaws produced an onslaught of curved split tones. Characteristic wild gouts of overblown notes tumble from the German’s horn, and, surprisingly, he’s answered in kind by the Briton. Before an oscillating bass line and simple piano end the proceedings, Brötzmann has asserted himself with long nasal yowls from his horn

Using the same rattling, metallic percussion, Bennink also introduces timbres that could come from struck wood block and hand-spanked conga drums on the quartet tracks, recorded in another studio six days later. With his cymbals quivering like aluminum pie plates, the Dutchman’s playing starts to resemble what you hear from Third World junkeroo bands that find their percussion instruments in garbage heaps and trash cans. However the bassist is more energized, probably spending as much time resolutely hammering on the wood with his fists and rapidly striking the front of his strings with the bow as he does bowing and plucking. As for Brötzmann, on both tunes he works himself into an altissimo, artery-bursting fury, yanking multiphonics and irregular vibrations from his reed in a style that’s half bar walking R&B tenor sax and half intestinal shrieks. It gets so that any duck quacking overblowing he exhibits is overtaken by unaccompanied renal screams, that under pressure from the rhythm section’s rapid response move into a higher and more feral range.

You have to remember that this was a time when Albert Ayler was still alive and other tenor men like Pharoah Sanders, Charles Tyler, Frank Wright and Archie Shepp were playing at their most vehement. With Teutonic meticulousness Brötz seems to be going them one better.

Is this an essential disc then? Well, it’s different and certainly interesting, but only in spots offers more than expected. Still if you’re a follower of any of the men involved --and/or need another fix of unfettered Free Jazz preserved in its rawest form -- the CD will unquestionably excite you.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. More nipples* 2. Fiddle-faddle 3.Fat man walks

Personnel: Peter Brötzmann, tenor saxophone; Evan Parker (soprano saxophone)*; Derek Bailey (guitar)*; Fred Van Hove (piano); Buschi Niebergall (bass); Han Bennink (drums)

October 6, 2003

BRÖTZMANN/PARKER/DRAKE

Never Too Late But Always Too Early
Eremite MTE 037/038

FRODE GJERSTAD TRIO WITH PETER BRÖTZMANN
Sharp Knives Cut Deeper
Splasc (h) CDH 850

More than 35 years after he roared onto the international Free Jazz scene, German reedist Peter Brötzmann’s playing still seems as ferocious as ever. This is a good thing. For unlike some of his contemporaries who have settled into a sort of middle-aged timidness, the tenor saxophonist still improvises with the same intensity and commitment at 60 as he did when he was 25.

Those who now hear a newly toned down Brötzmann are also a bit deluded. For the saxman’s playing has never been out-and-out raunchy and, as these two -- actually three, one is a two-CD set -- sessions demonstrate, his creations, are as solid or as subtle as he wants them to be.

Furthermore, Brötzmann, whose very first trio -- with the late German bassist Peter Kowald and Swedish drummer Sven-Åke Johansson -- was an international affair, has continued to maintain his non-German connections. Case in Point, NEVER TOO LATE is a record of his American trio with bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, while SHARP KNIVES adds Brötzmann to the working trio of alto saxophonist Frode Gjerstad of Norway, filled out by fellow Norwegians bassist Øyvind Stroresund and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love.

Dedicated to Kowald, who first explored the then new music when they were both teenagers in their hometown of Wuppertal, the tracks on NEVER TOO LATE are alternately as stormy as the music the initial trio first made, and as sombre as a threnody should be. Kowald died of heart failure in September 2002 between the recording and release of this live set.

Encompassing three tracks, the title tune begins with mournful clarinet tones from Brötzmann and restrained arco work from Parker. Unsurprisingly the reedist keeps the growled melancholy theme going for several minutes, only occasionally heading into higher, screech mode as the bassman produces thick and solid chords and Drake appears to be doing little more than merely touching the drums. Although an instant composition, the band probably decided to use it as a memorial since the subsequent solo by Parker, who also had a longtime association with Kowald, is rooted in the creation of simultaneous tones, overtones and undertones that the German bassist would have appreciated.

By the second track, Brötzmann on tenor, is keening like a traditional Muslim widow, sluicing out slipsliding shrills and overblowing tones. Drake has turned to harder rock-style drum beating, as the saxman seems to relinquish his control and turn to multiphonics -- if it’s possible to quadruple-tongue, he’s doing it. Finally, as the rhythm section gradually slows down then speeds up its accompaniment, the beat settles and the saxman’s irregular vibrato gets so frenzied that it almost seems as if he’s about to levitate. Ghost notes, false fingering, flutter tonguing combine as entire passages are taken in sopranissimo pitch. Soon the entire audience is screaming as Brötzmann honks out elongated tones to the climax.

“Half-hearted beast” seems almost anti-climatic in retrospect, with an re-energized reedman screeching a cappella as if he playing a hunting horn leading a charge at the foxes. Meanwhile, Drake’s free, but rhythmically powerful, rim shots complement Parker’s unvarying tone. Construction is almost pure soulful R&B, if you can accept that description of a German avant gardist’s work.

The first CD is pretty powerful as well, with Brötzmann’s renal cry announcing his presence almost from the beginning. Taking up the first four tracks of that disc, “Never Run but Go” finds the saxman rolling forward like a tank battalion, using his slightly nasal tone and split tones to push obstacles away. Not that the bassist and drummer are obstacles. Parker’s pizzicato pulse holds the beat to the road, while Drake uses cow bell, snare and ride cymbal to roll and slide out his All-American commentary on the blitzkrieg. Throughout the Chicago-based percussionist subtly alters the tempo underneath Brötzmann’s explosions.

Listen closely as well, and you’ll hear Parker quote from “Boogie Stop Shuffle” at one point. This is appropriate, since the New York-based bassist seems to have inherited its composer, Charles Mingus’ mantle not only as a first-class bassist, but also as an organizer and bandleader.

Although the emphasis here is on the reedist’s collection of nephritic cries and intestinal tones plus Drake’s roughs and drags, nothing seems to faze the bassist. By the end of the mini-suite, using his bow, he’s managed to get the others to halve the tempo to such an extent that the piece becomes almost quiet and reverent. Then again Brötzmann squealing in tongues is as close to “Taps” as Free Jazzers can play.

If that piece is quiet than “The Heart and the Bones” almost sounds like restrained BritImprov. After introducing the theme with abrasive steel wool-like string tones, Parker stands aside for muted squeals from Brötz and hand drumming from Drake. Soon the beat turns hypnotic as the bassist begins revealing the distinctive string sounds of the Donso Ngoni or Malian hunter’s harp. The coda relates a lot more to his pinpointed strums than the reedist’s squeals.

Recorded eight months later, SHARP KNIVES is a reunion of sort for Brötzmann and the veteran alto saxist, who recorded as a duo CD in 1998. Here, as a matter of fact, they start out this disc unaccompanied, with Gjerstad playing short nervous cadenzas on clarinet, while Brötz pushes out dark-colored continuum on bass clarinet. The German continues to go south with his sound as Gjerstad moves higher until all hell breaks loose with the entry of Stroresund and Nilssen-Love, pumped as if they have to run the four-minute mile.

Like Parker on the other disc, Stroresund holds the pulse, while Nilssen-Love, who has recorded with everyone from saxists Mats Gustaffson to Ken Vandermark, relies on press rolls to keep things on an even keel. Meanwhile the two woodwind players are getting louder, biting down on their reeds and vocalizing notes in the aviary range.

Pressure cooker pulses continue to appear for the remainder of the session, with Brötz’s taragto at times adding a bit of Eastern European color to the proceedings. For his part Gjerstad often clambers up the scale, spearing high pitched notes and operating in dog whistle territory. Together, the mixture of claxon calls and growling multiphonics from the two saxists often produces something that could be the soundtrack for feeding time at a zoo filled with particularly bad-tempered carnivores.

Everything reaches a climax in the final -- and longest -- track, when chalumeau clarinet tones matched with bowed bass lines are superseded by irregular drum beats and reed expositions that vary from whines to Bronx cheers. As the drummer channels Sunny Murray on rat-tat-tat snares and echoing cymbals, Brötzmann lacerates the melody, double and triple tonguing as if he was pulling notes straight from the very marrow of the saxophone. Gjerstad responds at higher intensity and higher pitch to such an extent that the dense notes and tones are packed tighter than the passengers in a Tokyo subway. With each woodwind note seemingly bent, simultaneous rattling drum and bowing bass push the tempo faster until the tune finally ends.

What’s left behind from the sax-created ostinato however is the promise that either of these veteran saxmen could have continued to blow all night.

As Kowald’s death at 58 proved, no one lives for ever. But on the evidence of these CDs, veterans like Brötzmann -- and come to think of it Gjerstad -- appear to have plenty of spunk left in them for many years to come.

-- Ken Waxman

Personnel: Never: Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, taragato, clarinet); William Parker (bass, donso ngoni); Hamid Drake (drums)

Track Listing: Never: Disc 1: 1. Never Run but Go I 2. Never Run but Go II 3. Never Run but Go III 4. Never Run but Go IV 4 5. The Heart and the Bones Disc 2: 1. Never Too Late But Always Too Early I 2. Never Too Late But Always Too Early II 3. Never Too Late But Always Too Early III 4. Half-hearted beast

Track Listing: Sharp: 1. Sharp Knives Cut Deeper Part 1 2. Sharp Knives Cut Deeper Part 2 3. Sharp Knives Cut Deeper Part 3 4. Sharp Knives Cut Deeper Part 4

Personnel: Sharp: Frode Gjerstad (alto saxophone, clarinet); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, taragato, bass clarinet); Øyvind Stroresund (bass); Paal Nilssen-Love (drums)

July 7, 2003

BRÖTZMANN/VAN HOVE/BENNINK

Balls
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 233CD

FRED VAN HOVE
Complete Vogel Recordings Collection
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 229 CD

All good things must come to an end. Thus it was no surprise that in 1976

the pan-European trio of German saxophonist Peter Bötzmann, Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove and Dutch drummer Han Bennink (BVB) dissolved their partnership after nine years.

Although the band was highly influential during its lifetime, with discs like BALLS, listening to it in tandem with Van Hove’s solo and duo discs from the same period you can hear why things had to come to an end. The trio was renowned for its pure power, most obviously expressed in the saxophonist’s overblowing and the drummer’s manhandling of a giant kit. The pianist often seems like the odd man out and the reason he gives for BVB’s demise was that any attempts at intricate playing on his part was drowned out by Bennink’s battery of percussion.

On the two-CD VOGEL RECORDINGS from 1972/1973/1974, his solo excursions explore other options than were available with BVB. Also, self-evidently, it wasn’t Bötzmann’s wild man woodwinds that bothered him. On eight duo selections here he’s partnered by Cel Overberghe, a fellow Fleming, whose tone and expression are often more over-the-top than the German saxophonist’s.

Along with the a quartet session with trombonist Albert Mangelsdorf, 1970’s BALLS is one of the seminal small group sessions Bötzmann led at that time. Part of a body parts trilogy, along with NIPPLES and TSCHUS, it featured the saxophonist and drummer in all their unrestrained, hairy-chested glory -- check the photos of a stripped-to-the-waist Bennink for confirmation of this. Furthermore, the LPs’ original four selections have been augmented with two newly discovered untitled tracks from the same date.

Throughout, the CD could be heard as a dictionary definition of so-called Free Jazz. Overblowing, smearing and screaming from his keys and reed, Brötzmann, who sticks to tenor saxophone, produces nephritic cries and internal buzzing trills, at times sounding like American saxist Rev. Frank Wright at his most unhinged. Not content with that, on one of the untitled tracks he extends his improvisations into the baritone range, honking more fervently than any bar-walking R&B soloist. Besides this, he exhibits an extended a cappella section on the last of the original LP’s tunes.

Bennink, who is described as playing “voice” as well as miscellaneous percussion implements, introduces a few clamorous mumbles and cries to the proceedings. Elsewhere it sounds as if he has emptied the contents of junkyard filled with metal shards into his studio space, at one point appearing to pound an aluminum sheet with a hammer, and at another sounding like he’s noisily testing a work bench full of tools. That, however, doesn’t stop him from worrying the sides, rims and drumhead surfaces of his kit with bells and cymbal tones, mixed with pummeling of his oversized bass drum.

Interestingly enough, his style on the first of the new untitled tracks is in variance to all this. He sounds his stack of so-called little instruments like an Art Ensemble of Chicago member and pecks away at his rims and cymbals as if he were at Britain’s Company Week, not involved in the Göterdämmerung of a German-centric session. Perhaps the tenderness of this response was so in conflict with what he and Brötzmann wanted to project at the time that it was decided to leave that improvisation in the can.

Convincing Van Hove of Bennink’s tenderness may have been more difficult at the time, of course. As early as the title track when the pianist tries to introduce what sounds like a half-prepared (piano)-half romantic theme, it’s all but is buried under the percussion strokes, screams and shell-blowing of Bennink. It’s almost the same story on “Garten”, as the pianist gradually increases his dynamics and introduces high frequencies just to be heard, so that his arpeggios soon turn to glissandos to match Brötzmann’s smears and renal shrieks. Behind, the drummer seems to be hitting everything in sight. On those and other tracks, it appears that Bennink’s sense of cooperative dynamics couldn’t compare with those of Sunny Murray playing with Cecil Taylor and Jimmy Lyons, an obvious antecedent for this trio. Still Van Hove plows ahead, deepening his keyboard dips and relying on note playlets and tremolos.

Tension shouldn’t be confused with inferiority however and it’s this creative tension that makes BALLS, the first LP commissioned by the nascent FMP label, so outstanding. As a matter of fact that sort of quivering ferment is missed in the two-thirds of the VOGEL RECORDINGS where Van Hove plays solo.

Still, as soon as he’s on his own, both his classical training in theory and harmony and his knowledge of the jazz tradition become obvious. On the first disc, for instance, many of his keyboard excursions sound like what would be produced if you mixed the modern experimentation of Jaki Byard or Mal Waldron with the rent party boogie woogie of Little Brother Montgomery or Jimmy Yancy. At a time when BVB seemed to be tearing down musical structure, here was Van Hove on his own coming up with more pre-modern piano references than any American pianist of his age would create.

This traditional inventiveness, mixed with the purity of his classical tone is more evident on “Boven alle verdenking verheven”, the title of which may mean a lot more to Flemish speakers. Melding higher and higher frequencies with tremolos and repeated arpeggios his approach is definitely two-handed with spraying note crescendos helping to make his point. On the next track, does the ear detect a quasi-parody of “God Save the Queen” in between those cadenzas that could have migrated from a Cecil Taylor session? Even more surprising is “Better grounds”, that at the beginning appears to be a tender ballad treated the way Hank Jones or Red Garland would play it. Complete with a swinging staccato passage, the tune mostly centres around tremolos, with the occasional excursion into lower frequencies. Finally, in the penultimate section, he begins reaching inside and using the duplex scale to produce sympathetic vibration as he plinks and plunks the copper wires.

A couple of years later a live recital offers “Sprookje: ridders, draken, olifanten, kasteel, prinses [schrappen wat niet past]”, a fantasia taken andante where the dynamics vary according to the hand used and vibrations and high frequencies define the piece. Later on there are times he seems to be gliding across the keys, while a part of “Muziek bij stomme film” has enough pedal action and ragtime/stride references to suggest a tribute to Tin Pan Alley and 1930s film music.

More pointed, the eight tracks with Overberghe, who appears to have vanished from the music scene since then, finds a freer Van Hove ready to mix “Chopsticks” and Chopin with his cadenzas. Probably the strangest track is “Beter tien vogels in de lucht”, where the (surely overdubbed) bowed bass notes and shuffle drumbeats are attributed to Overberghe, who also plays saxophone. Squealing Albert Ayler-style military marches view for supremacy with what sounds like a minstrel show ditty and it’s possible the pianist isn’t even present. Elsewhere, as on “Wie heeft dat vogeltje”, during which church bells seem to sound or “Bas la police (lope lope de gardevil)” -- how’s that for a 1960s-style title? -- the saxist’s snaky, snarkey pitched tone roams between the avant garde and vibrato-laden blues. Van Hove responds with speedy high frequencies featuring a honky-tonk tinge at one point and what could be a classical étude elsewhere.

Overberghe -- who introduces the musique concrète sounds of a jackhammer and a moving tram to a couple of tracks, adding more anarchy to those times that he and the pianist seems to be playing in different modes -- has Van Hove working the organ on “Alle eendjes” More circus calliope than church accompaniment, the pianist’s touch is such that you can hear individual notes sound as the tenor man squeals and trills, expanding his tone with lip vibrations.

No way as concise and focused as BALLS, time dated novelty vies with musical dexterity on the VOGEL RECORDINGS. But they too showcase a seldom seen side of the usually staid Van Hove when European free music was being forged.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Balls: 1. Balls 2. Garten 3. Filet Americain 4. De daag waarop sipke eindelijk zijn nagels knipte, en verder alle andere a moten voor hem openstonden I.C.P. 17 5. Untitled 1 6. Untitled 2

Personnel: Balls: Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone); Fred Van Hove (piano); Han Bennink (drums, gachi, shell, voice)

Track Listing: Vogel: CD 1: 1. Suite 1.2.3/1 - ahisma: het streven Om geen schade aan Te richten 2. Gusts rock 3. Boven alle verdenking verheven 4. Suite 1.2.3/2 - het streven om niet vertrapt te worden 5. Better grounds 6. Het is de hoogste tijd 7. Wie heeft dat vogeltje+ 8. Beter tien vogels in de lucht+^ 9. Ons lijsternestje+ CD 2: 1. D’er was een vogeltje+ 2. Alle eendjes*+ 3. Vogeltje gij zijt gevangen+ 4. Kreem gelas+ 5. Bas la police (lope lope de gardevil)+ 6. Intrede 7. Sprookje: ridders, draken, olifanten, kasteel, prinses [schrappen wat niet past] 8. Speel doosje speel 9. Compositie met toonladders 10. Pauze met accordeon 11. Pling plong 12. Tussenspel 13. Discussie tussen links en rechts waarbij natuurlijk klappen vallen 14. Muziek bij stomme film 15. Woordenschat

Personnel: Vogel: Fred Van Hove (piano, Hammond organ*); Cel Overberghe+ (tenor saxophone, bass/drums^)

March 3, 2003

MANFRED SCHOOF

European Echoes
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 232CD

ALEXANDER VON SCHLIPPENBACH
The Living Music
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 231CD

Multi-reedman Peter Brötzmann always insists that when pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach and trumpeter Manfred Schoof first heard his pioneering free jazz band in the mid-1960s “they just laughed their asses off. At that time they played the Horace Silver-style thing”. But, by the end of the decade as Brötzmann widened his circle to include other experimenters like Dutch drummer Han Bennink and worked with American jazzers like trumpeter Don Cherry and soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy, his fellow Germans began to come around as well.

They began to come around to such an extent that by 1969 Schlippenbach and Schoof were recording the outside session showcased on these discs, both of which featured international casts, definitely including Brötzmann and Bennink. Since that time the pianist has maintained his free jazz affiliation, most notably in a long-running trio with British saxophonist Evan Parker, who is also on EUROPEAN ECHOES. The trumpeter, on the other hand, sticks more to a mainstream style, when he isn’t writing and playing contemporary classical music.

Recorded first THE LIVING MUSIC was an indirect nod to Julian Beck’s experimental Living Theater group that had recently set up shop in Europe. It was also a smaller-sized version of Schlippenbach’s on-again-off-again-massive Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO), with British trombonist Paul Rutherford and Bennink joining the five Germans players.

In a way it’s those two, as well as Brötzmann, who are most impressive on this session. The trombonist who had already worked with London’s Spontaneous Music Ensemble and GUO and would go on to play throughout Europe, is credited with the invention of trombone multiphonics. Here his avant-gutbucket tone intertwines among the other instruments, stylistically neighing in his way like Tricky Sam Nanton did with Duke Ellington’s band. Using what sound like a regular kit expanded with a marimba, a thumb piano, a massive Oriental gong and who knows what else, Bennink has more percussion on hand than Ellington’s flashy Sony Greer ever had.

Like Greer, he uses it judiciously, however, smashing, banging and thumping enough to bring the discordant darker toned instruments together. At times, though, when the pianist attacks the keyboard with particular ferocity, Bennink become even more bellicose, becoming Sunny Murray to Schlippenbach’s Cecil Taylor.

However, since he began playing professionally almost at the same time as CT, Schlippenbach is more a Thelonious Monk man. As a matter of fact, his introductory solo on “Tower” has a pianistic conception that’s definitely Monk-like. Furthermore, despite Brötz’s overblowing -- no Charlie Rouse he -- and Bennink’s relentless pounding, the pianist’s nearly 11½-minute composition sounds like one of the tunes recorded by those mid-sized Monk ensembles.

Schlippenbach’s cadences and arpeggios are less adventurous elsewhere, especially when Schoof, on cornet, takes the lead. Influenced at that time as much by Ted Curson and other freeboppers as Cherry, the brassman’s “Wave” suggests The Jazz Messengers playing Ornette Coleman. Vying with swinging, foreground percussion, Schoof’s solo is all flourishes, fanfares and note building, facing counterpoint from the saxophone section and Rutherford’s smeared lines. Elsewhere, the British brassman combines with Bennink for exercises in free march time and otherwise -- perhaps aided by Niebergall’s little-heard bass trombone -- stacks up against the buzzing saxophones and relentless percussion with elongated tones that sometimes sound like the braying of animals.

Throughout, Brötzmann is a holy terror, pumping out notes as if from a machine gun and asserting himself more than anyone else. On one occasion he explodes into a cappella multiphonics, then works his way down his horn, tossing out variations on the theme as he goes along. Although as part of the Schoof Quintet and later on with his own band and work with Lacy, Luxembourg-resident Michel Pilz would be quite well known, he’s oddly reticent here. Only on the cornettist’s Stan-Kenton-meets-Don-Cherry arrangement of “Past Time” do his tart clarinet tone make any impression.

On the other hand, nearly every one of the 16 musicians present gets some solo space on EUROPEAN ECHOES, another of Atavistic’s FMP Archive Edition, recorded two months after Schlippenbach’s CD under Schoof nominal leadership.

It seems nominal because a soon a the fist drum beats echo through the studio, by means of the dual percussion of Bennink and Swiss drummer Pierre Favre, it’s obvious that this almost 32-minute composition is going to be some wild ride. Appropriately named, the disc features all the player on the first CD save Pilz plus Parker and German tenorist Gerd Dudek on saxophones; Italian Enrico Rava and Dane Hugh Steinmetz on trumpets; Fred Van Hove from Belgium and Irène Schweizer from Switzerland on pianos; British guitarist Derek Bailey and bassists Peter Kowald from Germany and Arjen Gorter from Holland.

With the examples of controlled chaos that other large ensembles like New York’s The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra, GUO and Brötzmann’s “Machine-Gun” band already created, this disc is most valuable providing aural views of important EuroImprovisers early in their career. Diffident Bailey, for instance, creates some wild, almost rock-oriented electric picking here with such vigor that it overwhelms the dual drummers. A far cry from his present persona as a balladeer, Rava produces some brassy, Don Ayler-like shakes. Meanwhile the triple keyboardists seem to be reconstituted as Cecil Taylor triplets, although during the course of the piece, one -- likely Schweizer -- offers up some inside piano harp glisses, along the lines for which she would later be better known.

Another small big band session that may have been on everyone’s mind at the time was John Coltrane’s less-than-five-years-old ASCENSION. Facing off against one another with cymbals and snares, flams, press rolls and march beats, Favre and Bennink are no Rich vs. Roach but suggest Elvin Jones times two. Additionally, some of the piano chording relates more to McCoy Tyner’s work with Trane than Taylor’s. All three trumpeters appear to be trying to see who can squeal the highest in bugle range as the theme is elaborated, though the plucked bass parts -- when they surface from the din -- may be more advanced than what Art Davis and Jimmy Garrison played on ADSCENSION. Dudek, Parker Brötzmann too generate enough screaming split tones to match Trane’s, Archie Shepp’s and Pharoah Sanders’ multiphonics on ASCENSION, often spitting out several bent notes simultaneously. Finally, as musical shards explode all over like bombs at an anarchist rally, the massed ferment builds to a combative crescendo, ending with the sustained single cymbal echo.

Too young or distanced to have experienced the excitement of 1960s’ Free Jazz? These two discs are the next best thing to being there.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: European: 1. European Echoes Part 1 2. European Echoes Part 2

Personnel: European: Manfred Schoof, Enrico Rava, Hugh Steinmetz (trumpets); Paul Rutherford (trombone); Peter Brötzmann, Gerd Dudek (tenor saxophones); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophone); Alexander Von Schlippenbach; Fred Van Hove, Irène Schweizer (pianos); Derek Bailey (guitar); Peter Kowald, Arjen Gorter (basses); Buschi Niebergall (bass and bass trombone); Han Bennink, Pierre Favre (drums)

Track Listing: Living: 1. The living music 2. Into the Staggerin 3. Wave 4. Tower 5. Lollopalooza 6. Past time

Personnel: Living; Manfred Schoof (cornet and flugelhorn); Paul Rutherford (trombone); Peter Brötzmann (tenor and baritone saxophones); Michel Pilz (bass clarinet and baritone saxophone); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano and percussion); J.B. Niebergall (bass and bass trombone); Han Bennink (drums and percussion)

December 16, 2002

PETER BRÖTZMANN

For Adolphe Sax
Atavistic Unheard Music Series ALP 230

Americans might have been in the middle of the psychedelics-fueled Summer of Love in June 1967, but things were a little more complicated in Europe. Especially in the northern part of the continent, politically committed revolutionaries were a lot easier to find than hippies. Educational, generational and societal unrest was rife, protests against racism, colonialism and the Viet Nam war were routine, and the situation existed that would culminate in demonstrations in 1968. European radicals were more likely to be wearing red armbands than flowers in their hair.

Even improvised music reflected this. While the appeal of jazz-rock fusion and pop-jazz hit making was infecting many American musicians, things were more serious overseas. On this, a reissue of his first album, German sax blower Peter Brötzmann and his associates were staking out their own turf with the sort of sonic landmine explosions committed in-your-face risk takers like Albert Ayler, Charles Tyler, Pharoah Sanders and Archie Shepp -- all saxophonists -- had experimented with a couple of years before.

The world was a lot bigger then before satellite television and MP3s. Brötz and others heard about rather than heard the nascent New Thingers. And the German sax man has always maintained that he was happy to hear Ayler’s earliest discs because it meant that someone else beside him was experimenting with overblowing, multiphonics and the non-song form.

While not as mind-altering as MACHINE GUN, which in 1968 extended this cacophony to a larger group, FOR ADOLPHE SAX, initially issued on the saxophonist’s own Bro label, is still a pretty impressive achievement. For here are two musicians from Wuppertal -- Brötz and bassist Peter Kowald -- plus an errant Swede -- drummer Sven-Åke Johansson producing hard, exhilarating pan-European jazz. Naming the LP after the Belgian inventor of the saxophone was a challenge, not a conceit after all.

What strikes you the most about this session, which has been expanded on CD with the addition of a nearly 10 minute piece which adds Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove to the trio, is the utter lack of dynamics. The Brötzmann of 2002 is Coleman Hawkins compared to the 1967 model, which solos with the ferocity and subtlety of a tank. At the same time, all the musicians look so much younger, as they were, and sound as if they were full of piss and vinegar -- at least that’s one way to characterize German wine and beer.

All the tracks are dominated by the saxophonist’s high-pitched, nephritic moans that seem designed to show that his output could be just as ferocious as Ayler’s, whose first ESP-Disk was three years old at the time. Often beginning with a whine, Brötzmann quickly moves into heavy shrieks and keeps up a constant repertoire of glossolalia and note flurries. Highlighting an ever-expanding dissonant tone, every so often he’ll slow down enough to let loose with one of those renal honks which defines his style to this day. Like Ayler, though, and very few others, there are variations in his screams as there are in the wordless shouts of the best soul singers.

Only 23 at the time, Kowald’s presentation is slower and less supple then it would become in subsequent years, but he’s able to match Brötz stroke by stroke. Using his bow to create a swarm of high-pitched buzzes, he’ll unexpectedly fall into the bass clef. “Sanity” (sic) -- the shortest track on the album -- allows him more scope since his quieter passages don’t have to jockey for real estate with acres of triple tonguing and overblowing.

As an aside, one wonders if the saxophonist’s frenzied playing on the 16 plus minutes of “Morning Glory” was what first created the tale that he literally burst a blood vessel during performance; it certainly seems to be hernia-creating music. That tune is memorable for another reason as well: for a few seconds the riff that would define MACHINE GUN makes its appearance.

While all this is going on, in the background Swedish drummer Sven-Åke Johansson bangs and crashes different parts of his kit like Sunny Murray on those early Ayler LPs. Paradoxically, for someone whose country was becoming a haven for war resisters, his approach often changes from suggestions of door knocking to hearty rat tat tats that almost sound military.

Van Hove, who would go on to be a long-time partner of the saxophonist in a trio with Dutch drummer Han Bennink, is in full energy piano mode on the last track, which

from a radio broadcast, is not as well recorded as the other three. He has to be, though, considering that the intensity of the other three is still there. Brötz also shifts to the baritone, but considering the high-pitched overtones he gets from it, there doesn’t seem to be much variation in sound from his tenor playing. The other overall drawback of all these tunes is that each seems to end rather than come to a logical conclusion, a sensitivity that would only come with maturity.

Thirty-five years later each of the musicians represented here plays differently, but with no loss of commitment. All may be less interested in waving a fist at the bourgeois as they did then, but that stance was necessary at the time. This reissue is still a powerful, rotgut blast of uncompromising free jazz and should be heard for precisely that reason.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. For Adolphe Sax 2. Sanity 3. Morning Glory 4. Everything*

Personnel: Peter Brötzmann (tenor and baritone saxophones); Fred Van Hove (piano)*; Peter Kowald (bass); Sven-Åke Johansson (drums)

September 23, 2002

PETER BRÖTZMANN TENTET PLUS TWO

Short Visit To Nowhere
Okka Disk OD 12043

PETER BRÖTZMANN TENTET PLUS TWO
Broken English
Okka Disk OD 12044

Three years after it was first organized and a year after it first toured, Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet (Plus Two in this case) displays, in these 2000 recordings, that it has become an exemplary example of how to adopt free improv to large aggregations.

With a mixed cast of seven Chicagoans, three members from New York state, a Swede and Brötzmann, a German, it has all the firepower of a traditional big band with its eight horns. Plus, the three-man string section and two percussionists ensure that not only is its bottom covered -- so to speak -- but that the strings can alternately meld with the horns or shore up the rhythm section. Also, while the German reedman wrote two of the compositions, he’s democratic enough to make room for one piece each by Chicago multi-woodwind player Ken Vandermark, Swedish reedist Mats Gustafsson and Chicago cellist/violinist Fred Lonberg-Holm.

The brass section is made up of New York trumpeter/flugelhornist Roy Campbell, Chicago trombonist Jeb Bishop and Poughkeepsie, N.Y.’s Joe McPhee, who put his saxes aside to concentrate on trumpet and valve trombone. Vandermark’s closest associate Kent Kessler and Manhattanite William Parker, who has a long history with Brötzmann, combine on basses; while Michael Zerang on drums and Hamid Drake on drums, frame drum and voice --both from Chicago -- handle the percussion chores.

Experienced with many large European aggregations, most notably the pan-European Globe Unity Orchestra, Brötzmann appears to know how much freedom to give his posse of star soloists and when to rein them in. On both discs, for instance, you hear a lot more than you would in a conventional jazz big band where star soloists taking their turn at the mike while the remainder riff anonymously. Sure, there’s plenty of solo space available -- how could it be otherwise with the shortest tune more than 13 minutes and the longest almost 43 (!) -- but there are also definite group passages.

Take “Stonewater” on BROKEN ENGLISH, which expanded by another six minutes since it was first recorded in concert at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle in 1999. Intense, stratosphere blats from the massed horns serve as connective leitmotifs once the piece gets going. New is a six-minute intro that finds Drake chanting and playing hand drum. Then, after some tarogato puffs from Brötz, all hell breaks loose in such a way that it must have brought back fond memories of the in-your-face opening of the tenor man’s 1968 MACHINE GUN. As the succeeding soloists take centrestage, er… studio, the saxes provide their avant version of a Count Basie horn section, chugging away in the background.

As this piece -- and the others on the two CDs -- unrolls, however, the major criticism of the session is evident as well. With no identification of soloists, one can only make educated guesses as to who plays what. Before Kessler and Parker combine for some saw-toothed buzzing, the guttural sax tongue slapping you hear probably comes from Gustafsson, while the pastoral clarinet portion is likely Vandermark’s work. After a quasi-Dixieland interlude heavy on liquid clarinet lines and pointed trumpet, not to mention Gustafsson using his baritone to make like bass sax blaster Adrian Rollini, the speedy yet gravelly ‘bone lines probably come from McPhee’s valve.

Eras and styles blend as well. For example, when the walking basses and bomb dropping bass drum section make up one pulse, the massed sax section functions as stalwart, bar-walking R&B honkers. Finally one -- Brötz (?) -- breaks free from the pack for an extended a cappella stop time solo that goes from screaming altissimo split tones to gut-wrenching overblowing. Eventually scraped arco strings give way to a toboggan ride of brass slides and slurs, and the tune culminates in a Mingusian crescendo.

Or take Lonberg-Holm’s “Lightbox”. Beginning with a muted trumpet -- probably played by Campbell -- McPhee and Bishop soon come on like an up-to-date Jay & Kai, romping through slide and valve positions until pizzicato strings give way to the massed cacophony of many reeds. After that there’s a sax face off, with one exploring every extended aviary technique to build to a crescendo, while the other -- apparently Gustafsson -- produces a funk thump that could fit in the bands of James Brown or Ray Charles. Pseudo-human cries, courtesy of the reeds, and arcing orchestral brass sum up the tune, which after several false endings stops on a dime -- or maybe a Euro.

Strangely enough, Williams’ “Hold That Thought” on the same CD sounds more like a revved up Ellington band than the Gustafsson piece named for the Duke that follows it. Of course, with what is likely Vandermark’s Klezmer-like clarinet passages, it would be an Ellington who was as familiar with (old) Odessa as New Orleans and know Bialystok as well as Baltimore. There’s also a Latin influence, with sections where the horns seem to play “La Cucuracha”. Campbell’s notes sail on top of the charts the way trumpeter Cat Anderson’s did with Ellington, while Bishop’s double-time plunger work, calls forth answering chords from the band like Tricky Sam Nanton’s did from the Duke’s Jungle band. Call this mainstream with avant-flourishes

Mention should also be made of the arrangement for “Short Visit To Nowhere”, one CD’s more-than-25-minute title track. Although there are a good number of scratches from the strings, bleats from the saxes and smears from the brass, there’s still room for what sounds like an electric guitar working out of a Jimi Hendrix bag, which is probably Lonberg-Holm on fiddle. The German saxophonist’s writing allow different sections of the group to be emphasized at different times. For instance, stroked buzzes coalesce into the creation of avant string trio, modulating up and down the stops at one point; and a modern reed battle between what’s probably Williams’ squalling alto and Brötz or Vandermark’s unhurried clarinet lines erupt at another point.

One could go on and on. While it’s frightening to think how good the Brötzmann band of any size must sound now, with two more years together, it’s easy to praise both of these CDs. Although available singly, they’re actually one of a piece, the way the cover photo on each can be joined to make one consistent image.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: Short: 1. Hold That Thought 2. Ellington 3. Short Visit To Nowhere 4. Lightbox

Track Listing: Broken: 1. Stonewater 2. Broken English

Personnel on both discs: Roy Campbell (trumpet, flugelhorn); Joe McPhee (trumpet, valve trombone); Jeb Bishop(trombone); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, clarinet, tarogato); Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone, clarinet); Mars Williams (alto and tenor saxophone); Mats Gustafsson (tenor and baritone saxophones); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello, violin); Kent Kesler (bass); William Parker (bass, log drum); Michael Zerang (drums); Hamid Drake (drums, frame-drum, voice)

June 7, 2002

PETER BRÖTZMANN & DIE LIKE A DOG QUARTET

Aoyama Crows
FMP CD 118

Bearing in mind that these four busy musicians have been playing together irregularly for a little less than a decade, they’ve coalesced into one of reedist Peter Brötzmann’s most accomplished units. That’s some achievement for a part time combo, considering that past Brötz bands have included some genre definers as saxophonists Frank Wright and Evan Parker, trombonist Paul Rutherford, bassist Peter Kowald and drummers Han Bennink and Louis Moholo.

Singly or together, rhythm section alchemists --- bassist William Parker, linchpin of a dozen bands in New York’s Lower East Side, and drummer Hamid Drake, Chicago’s most in-demand percussionist -- can apparently move any playing situation onto the gold standard. But the wild card here is Japanese trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, whose electronic treatments add an unusual found sound texture not found in the saxophonist’s other projects, not to mention being the first trumpeter with whom the saxophonist has had a long term relationship.

Of course Brötz is no slouch either in the creative department either. Vigorous or exhausted -- as he apparently was on this date -- the 61-year-old road warrior is still as capable of boundless energy and gut-shredding intensity as he was on his first LP, FOR ADOLPHE SAX, in 1967. What has changed over the years -- and which is now demonstrated when the saxophonist picks up his clarinet or tarogato -- is the unsentimental lyricism that has crept into some of his playing.

Although the music is more-or-less continuous, track three gives you some idea of how it operates. Quieter than anything you would imagine from Wuppertal’s most strident citizen, Brötzmann’s renal cry on the tarogato is first seconded by Parker’s speedy arco bass licks and Drake’s palming of a few percussive sounds. Then Kondo gradually appears through a sort of electronic fog, trilling and chirping in such a way that it seems as if he’s playing a melodica rather than a trumpet.

Manipulating the sound source as much as his instrument, the trumpeter’s Daffy Duck-like squawk is soon overruled by fluid clarinet tones that climb into higher and higher registers. By the conclusion, as Parker elaborates a steady bass pulse and Drake sizzles his cymbals, Kondo spits out twin tones that could as easily come from a toy trumpet or a PVC tube as his brass axe.

Even ignoring electronics, Kondo, who has labored in the avant-trenches for decades with the likes of British pianist Steve Beresford, possesses an inimitable sound. On the first track, for example, his distinctive half-valve growls and muted triple tonguing arrive long before the kilowatts. Then when he really plugs in, at times his brass flurries appear to bounce off the stage lights. Still later his squeal and horse whinnies create a unique vibration that sounds as if he’s blowing through a comb and tissue paper. Finally he ends his mouthy excursion with impulses that may remind many of a rock/funk guitarist exercising his wah wah pedals rather than a brass tone.

Ceding no ground, Brötzmann sans electronics lets loose on tenor saxophone with the kind of exploding, lung-bruising multiphonics that have defined his identity from the beginning. Just before the coda, though, the saxman yanks out his clarinet. Sticking mostly to the lowest register, he devises some dissonant double timed runs to pair with the muted brass.

While all this is going on upfront, the bassist is rhythmically prodding the piece forward, steady as a pilot directing a dreadnought through a stormy sea. Here he’s usually aided and abetted by the drummer, who decorates Parker’s undivided time keeping with frills and fills, sometimes turning the beat around.

In the past Brötzmann has been part of memorable combos that for all intent and purposes defined EuroImprov. Now in his authoritative maturity he’s recruited three exceptional non-Europeans to illustrate with him the shape of global improv.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. 27’46” 2. 15’ 51” 3. 22’40” 4. 3’52”

Personnel: Toshinori Kondo (trumpet, electronics); Peter Brötzmann (tarogato, alto clarinet, tenor saxophone); William Parker (bass); Hamid Drake (drums)

March 29, 2002

GLOBE UNITY ORCHESTRA

Globe Unity ’67 & ‘70
Atavistic Unheard Music UMS/ALP 223 CD

Souvenirs of a time when “globe unity” meant more than the convergence of commercial or military interests, this CD of never-before-released tracks feature a small army of Euro improvisers luxuriating in the freedom promulgated by John Coltrane’s ASCENSION and The Jazz Composer’s Orchestra.

Formed in late 1966, following a Berlin Jazz Festival commission for founder/pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach, the Globe Unity Orchestra (GUO) evolved over the years from this wild-and-wooly Energy ensemble to one that joined other European large groups in a concern for compositions. Besides, many might find that these two pieces, initially taped for German radio, more exciting than what came from the band afterwards.

The more than 34-minute, 1967 performance, for instance, finds the less than a year old, 19-piece GUO taking full advantage of the era’s heady musical freedom. Roaring up and down the score is a literal who’s who of (in-the-main) German free jazzers, some of whom like saxophonist Peter Brötzmann -- here playing alto of all things -- bassist Peter Kowald and vibist Karl Berger (as an organizer/teacher) went on to greater and more varied expression. Some like reedman Willem Breuker, trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff and brassman Manfred Schoof turned to more conventional playing. A few musicians have since died and others have been lost in the mists of time.

In a composition made up of many climaxes, ending on an extended Wagnerian flourish, and which practically knocks over the listener with its sheer power, von Schlippenbach seems to be the leader only by osmosis. It’s pretty much every man for himself, spurred and taunted by a massed rhythm section of three percussionists, two bassists, a vibist, a tubaist and the pianist smashing a gong when the spirit moves him.

Especially impressive are Schoof soaring into the ozone layer with his cornet and high D trumpet, and Breuker puffing out some deep-dish baritone saxophone blats. Halfway through as well, Gunter Hampel’s flute and Willy Lietzmann’s tuba join for a minuet that suggests a rhinoceros sashaying with a crow. Additionally, the pianist sounds best two thirds of the way through, when he unleashes some space boogie-woogie, rather than at other places where he still seems in thrall to Cecil Taylor.

However with such a large aggregation and so many short solo peeping out of the dense musical mass, at times it’s hard to ascribe proper praise where it’s due. Is it Gerd Dudek or Heinz Sauer who takes the hairy-chested, Coltranesque tenor saxophone solo at the beginning; and does Hampel or Kris Wanders contribute bass clarinet bottom elsewhere? With everyone trying to contribute his two marks worth, identification become difficult.

Three years later, with the band members’ hair and beards grown even longer and wilder, the Germans are joined by Czech, Polish, French, Dutch and a whole contingent of British musicians -- most prominently saxophonist Evan Parker, guitarist Derek Bailey and drummer Han Bennink. With the section swelled by U.K. trombonists Malcolm Griffiths and Paul Rutherford, the almost 18-minute piece is more brassy and thanks to Dutchman Bennink and his German opposite number Paul Lovens, more percussive. Interestingly enough, though, except for some minor guitar feedback at the top and a small circuit of protracted saxophone excavating in the middle -- which could come from any one of the five saxophonists -- neither Bailey nor Parker seems to showcase any part of what would soon become an instantly identifiable persona. Instead the -- at times -- nine brasses assert themselves more than the other instruments.

Cleaner than many live recordings, but not sonically perfect, the disc boosts the GUO’s slim discography and offers a fresh and memorable look at the band in its formative, most experimental, years.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Globe Unity ’67 2. Globe Unity ‘70

Personnel: ’67: Manfred Schoof (cornet, high D trumpet); Jürg Grau, Claude Deron (trumpet); Jiggs Wigham, Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone); Willy Lietzmann (tuba); Gunter Hampel (bass clarinet, flute); Peter Brötzmann (alto saxophone); Kris

Wanders (alto saxophone, bass clarinet); Gerd Dudek, tenor and soprano saxophones, clarinet); Heinz Sauer (tenor and soprano saxophones); Willem Breuker baritone saxophone, clarinet); Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano, bells, gong, tam-tam); Karlhanns Berger (vibraphone); Buschi Niebergall, Peter Kowald (bass); Jacki Liebezeit, drums, tympani); Mani Neumeier, Sven-Åke Johansson (drums)

Personnel: ’70: Kenny Wheeler (trumpet, flugelhorn); Schoof (trumpet, flugelhorn, high D trumpet); Tomas Stanko, Bernard Vitet (trumpet); Malcolm Griffiths, Mangelsdorff, (trombone); Paul Rutherford (trombone, tenor horn); Niebergall (bass trombone, bass); Evan Parker (soprano and tenor saxophones); Michel Pilz (flute, bass clarinet, soprano saxophone); Dudek, tenor and soprano saxophones, flute); Sauer (alto, tenor and soprano saxophones); Brötzmann, tenor and baritone saxophones); von Schlippenbach (piano, percussion); Derek Bailey (guitar); Kowald (bass, tuba); Arjen Gorter (bass, electric bass); Paul Lovens (drums, percussion); Han Bennink, drums, shellhorn, dhung, gachi)

December 3, 2001

PETER BRÖTZMANN

Fuck De Boere
Atavistic/Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP 211 CD

HAAZ & COMPANY
Unlawful Noise
Atavistic/Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP 219 CD

It's time to rewrite the jazz history books yet again with the appearance of these archival-style CDs.

The first reveals that Peter Brötzmann's famous octet version of "Machine Gun" in 1968 wasn't its first performance. This CD includes a nonet run through of the piece recorded live at a jazz festival by German radio, two months earlier. The second disc shows that 1960s-style Energy Music, which in 1976 was deemed as passé and unfashionable as bell bottoms and headbands in North America, was still going strong in Europe.

No more or less in-your-face that the justly-celebrated version which has been constantly available from FMP since it's first pressing, this "Machine Gun" adds German tenor saxophonist Gerd Dudek to the usual suspects who would make the definitive version a couple of months later. Since none of the solos are identified, it's hard to know which one -- if any -- of these incendiary reed explosions came from Dudek's horn. It's instructive to realize, however that one probably issued from Evan Parker's saxophone.

Besides the caterwauling, this "Machine Gun" version reminds us that pianist Fred Van Hove and the twin bassists of Peter Kowald and Bushi Niebergall brought a certain understated dignity to the proceedings, no matter the circumstances. Imagine too what those unprepared jazz fans at the Frankfort jazz festival must have thought when facing this fusillade.

Recorded in 1970, the almost 37-minute title track could be seen (heard) as Brötzmann's "Ascension". Certainly having seven horn players -- including four trombonists -- elaborate the theme, made it about as dense and unforgiving as possible. Moreover, the massed 'bone brigade gave the tenor saxophonist enough brass counterpoint to elaborate those gut-wrenching explosions for which he was already known. Dutch reedmanWillem Breuker is likely responsible for the almost equally ferocious clean-up sax solos, and, as he's continued to do so to this day, Dutch drummer Han Bennink doesn't need a percussion partner to blast out the beat. Everything and anything that passes by gets hit by the flying Dutchman and it's probably him who is responsible for the occasional falsetto cries and yelps as well.

Again it's impossible to know the trombonist source for the savage tone that comes to the fore during those brass forays. But on guesswork alone, it's probably Brötzmann's Globe Unity Orchestra mate Briton Paul Rutherford, who was always known for elongating a mean slide. This skill is especially noticeable when the brassman goes head to head with the screaming lead reed molester.

Spending most of his time on the organ, which he treats as a sort of jittery, angular electric piano -- good for protracted background asides but not for solos -- Belgian Van Hove illuminates a different persona than with his more elegant piano work. It's the same for British guitarist Derek Bailey. Famous for his busy, yet sometimes barely audible fret work, when facing down the massed horn here he turns into a free improv Jeff Beck, knocking out a couple of solos that are as metallic as they are surprising.

As for the title, it comes from an expression used by exiled South African bassist Johnny Dyani, in describing the protracted struggle against the apartheid government of his homeland, which contained a high percentage of people with Boer background.

Six years later, Dyani himself is present on UNLAWFUL NOISE, along with fellow South African exile Louis Moholo on drums, Brötzmann, Bennink (on clarinets [!] and percussion) and his brother, reedist Peter Bennink. Leader, pianist Kees Hazevoet, is another "lost" Dutch Free Jazz composer.

Prominent on the scene from the early 1960s in bands with the likes of Moholo, Breuker, Bennink and Brötzmann, Hazevoet gave up music at the end of the 1970s, turned to academe and is now a well-respected ornithologist.

Circumstances may have conspired against a committed atonalist like the pianist. With its high pitch clarinet assault and freeform rhythm, discs like this may have seemed like 1960s throwbacks to hip jazzers of the time. The jazz heroes of the time were folks like George Benson, Chuck Mangione, Chick Corea's Return To Forever and Weather Report. Fusion, speedy solos, sales charts and "reaching the people" were catchwords of nearly every one of these men. Hazevoet would have fit in with them about as well as Mahatma Gandhi would have at a convention of mutual fund salesmen. Instead the pianist -- and each of the musicians featured here -- was secure in his own vision, without worrying about going platinum or Grammy awards.

Both extended pieces actually seem to part of a much longer blow out, since the first merely fades out at the end, then, followed by a couple seconds of silence the second, equally anarchistic piece kicks in. Can you imagine Keith Jarrett, enveloped as he was even then, in kid gloves sound reproduction doing a disc like this? Or what about fusion mavens George Duke and Stanley Clarke? They would certainly have sneered that Hazevoet's methods couldn't produce a commercial product.

Instead, on this session, the four clarinetists spend much of the time testing the stratosphere, the saxes indulge in some concentric outbursts, and in his occasional solos Brötzmann unleashes enough energy to counter any blackout caused by Pacific Gas & Electric. If a melody breaks through, though, it often sounds like the uncomplicated, repeated riff that ends "Machine Gun" or the nursery rhymes favored by Albert Ayler.

Everything holds together because of the outstanding -- and sometimes audible -- section work of Dyani and Moholo, aided and abetted by Bennink tossing what sounds like the entire contents of his houseboat as percussion into the mix. Throughout, Hazevoet keeps up a constant stream of undisciplined piano clusters and arpeggios.

Taken as a whole, UNLAWFUL NOISE is both stimulating and poignant. It's bracing as only the freest music played by committed musicians can be. But it's melancholy as well, because the burgeoning jazz business of the 1980s and beyond didn't leave any room for joyous noisemakers like the pianist. Our loss is birds' gain. At least some artifacts of freer decades, like these two discs, exist.

-- Ken Waxman

Fuck: Track Listing: 1. Machine Gun 2. Fuck De Boere

Personnel:1: Peter Brötzmann, Evan Parker, Gerd Dudek, Willem Breuker (saxophones); Fred Van Hove (piano); Peter Kowald, Bushi Niebergall (bass); Han Bennink, Sven-Åke Johansson (drums) 2: Malcolm Griffiths, Willem van Manen, Niebergall, Paul Rutherford (trombones); Brötzmann, Parker, Breuker (saxophones); Van Hove (piano, organ); Bennink (drums)

Unlawful: Track Listing: 1. Unlawful Noise 2. Agitprop Bounce

Personnel: Peter Bennink (alto and sopranino saxophones, clarinet); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, clarinets); Han Bennink (clarinets, bass clarinet, percussion); Kees Hazevoet (piano, clarinet); Johnny Dyani (bass); Louis Moholo (drums)

May 31, 2001

PETER BRÖTZMANN

Live at Nefertiti
Ayler aylCD-004

How many Peters does it take to make a matchless improvised music session? Well, if this CD is any indication, the correct answer is three, as long as one spells his first name as Peeter.

Approaching 60, German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann's playing remains as boisterous as ever, and his commitment to uncompromising to free jazz is as strong as it was when he waxed the legendary MACHINE GUN in 1968. No mellowed senior statesman, his stentorian tone still extends to the skies, and he's as likely to limit his solos to a couple of minutes as he is to start quaffing mineral water instead of the harder stuff.

In live sessions, like the one captured in a Swedish club in 1999, Brötzmann is a throwback to an even earlier jam session tradition. With the right musicians there's no need for arrangements, solo order or even much conversation. The saxman just plants himself flat-footed on the floor, as they say in Chicago, and starts improvising. He stops when he takes the horn out of his mouth and lets others pick up the slack.

Of course, this superior strategy only works if your confreres can labor as convincingly as you. But this session proves that Brötzmann had nothing to worry about that evening. Danish bass guitarist Peter Friis Nielsen has been playing with the saxophonist for many years in the cooperative Wild Man's Band -- with, interestingly enough, another Peter, Ole Jorgensen on drums -- Swedish drummer Peeter Uuskyla is resolute enough to have worked with Cecil Taylor. Additionally, he and Friis Nielsen are comfortable with one another's idiosyncrasies, having spent more than five years as two-thirds of saxophonist Biggi Vinkeloe's trio.

If there's anything out-of-the-ordinary on this gig, it's the brief, suave balladic tone Brötzmann adopts at the beginning of "Nidhog 4" -- imagine Ben Webster's sound gradually being fed through a coarse meat grinder -- and the fact that he features his wooden, Hungarian tarogato on "Nidhog 3". Beginning with an extended legato wail on that number, he slows the tempo down to such an extent that a quiet, near Oriental melody begins to be suggested. Like a lustful lover, though, he can't control himself for long, and soon the multiphonics and avian squawks spilling from his horn get all three musicians operating at warp speed. All and all, he's in full energy mode throughout the disc's 71 minutes plus.

Although there's no trading fours as such, Friis Nielsen gets a showcase on his own "Off Sight" slinking up and down the bass's neck to great effect. No repressed rocker, like some players from the Stanley Clarke school of bass guitar excess, he's obviously turned to the electric monster to keep up and be audible between Brötzmann's unbridled gouts of sound and Uuskyla's unremitting percussion blasts.

A basher, not a tickler, the drummer struts his stuff on "Third Sun", which he also wrote. Dynamics may not be his long suit, but the sort of ceaseless drum investigation that he brings to every track, not only references 1960s energy music, but also perfectly meshes with the reedman's vision of the world.

Brötzmann's strength and stamina can make uebermenschen of other musicians with which he works. LIVE AT NEFERTITI is another memorable souvenir of this alchemy.

-- Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Nidhog 1 2. Nidhog 2 3. Third Sun 4. Nidhog 3 5. Off Sight 6. Nidhog 4

Personnel: Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, clarinet, tarogato); Peter Friis Nielsen (electric bass); Peeter Uuskyla (drums)

April 24, 2001

PETER BRÖTZMANN

Nipples
Atavistic/Unheard Music Series UMS/ALP 205 CD

One of the great, lost Euroimprov records, NIPPLES could rightly be described as a supersession. Recorded in 1969, less than a year after German saxophonist Brötzmann's seminal call to free jazz arms, MACHINE GUN, it has been out of print for almost the same amount of time. Not only does the title track feature five of the MACHINE GUNners, but it adds guitarist Bailey, who with saxophonist Parker would very soon turn away from this extroverted style to concentrate on the distinctive British "scratch and pick" style.

NIPPLES' unavailability put the same hole in the European creative music discography that would have happened with rock if The Rolling Stones Now! had quickly gone out of print. Not only would listeners have been deprived of a glimpse of the Stones with such disparate folks as Gene Pitney and Phil Spector, but some of the band's best early blues playing would have been lost.

In the Euroimprov firmament, each of the men here has proved to be as important to that music more than three decades later as the Stones were to rock. Flemish nationalist Van Hove, has continued to refine his piano style; Bennink, from Holland, is still as bombastic as ever and has propelled many a free jazz blow out, as well as several large orchestras; Bailey is the crotchety grand old man of improv; Parker, a master of circular breathing, is arguably one of the most influential sax stylists in the world; and Brötzmann's lung-shredding tone is still on view anywhere from Germany to Germantown. Unfortunately, though, German bassist Niebergal, died a few years ago).

Probably the most unexpected part of the title track is how much both saxophonists sound like one another (sort of realizing that it was Brian Jones not Keith Richards who played lead guitar on an early Stones track). At that point, Parker seemed able to match Brötzmann power shriek for power shriek, intertwining sounds as if they were two snakes. The one extended, unaccompanied stop-time solo must be Brötz, however. Overall, the effect is exhilarating.

Noteworthy too is Bailey's work, since he's as upfront here with literal electric lines, as he would be in the background for most of his subsequent improv projects.

On the other hand, "Green Man", the quartet track, is quieter and more rhythm section and rhythmically-oriented. At least until the saxophonist gets warmed up. Then

It's strictly a Teutonic eruption, with Brötz exploring the range of his horn through several themes including one that echoes Albert Ayler's "Ghosts". His work forces Van Hove -- the second soloist -- to play more assertively than he does in 2000, while nothing has ever prevented Bennink from adding obstreperous percussion colors to any proceeding.

If there's a drawback to this CD, it's that it's less than 34 minute long. But if your interest is well recorded, quality music rather than quantity of sound you can't go far wrong with this session.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Nipples 2. Tell The Green Man

Personnel: Peter Brötzmann and Evan Parker (tenor saxophones); Derek Bailey (guitar); Fred Van Hove (piano); Buschi Niebergal (bass); Han Bennink (drums)

June 17, 2000

PETER BRÖTZMANN

Stone/Water
Okka Disk OD 12032

Peter Brötzmann is no stranger to bombast.

The German multi-reedist first goose-stepped his way into world jazz consciousness in 1968 with MACHINE GUN on FMP. From its first extended blats of pure noise emanating from a (very) mixed platoon of Dutch, Flemish, British and German improvisers, it gave lusty notice that Continental jazzers had to be judged on their own merits rather than in comparison to North American musicians.

Over the years, except for the odd one/off project, economic necessity has forced Brötzmann to work with smaller bands -- usually trios and quartets and some commentators have even posited that the wildman has mellowed.

As this fine session, attests, nothing could be further from the truth. It's just with a veteran's maturity, the saxophonist now knows exactly when to let 'er rip and when to keep things on a quieter level. Also, unlike some of his more dogmatic colleagues, he's never missed an opportunity to collaborate with many other musicians, be they Americans or Moroccans.

That's the genesis of this disc -- recorded at last year's Festival International de Musique International in Victoriaville, Que. A couple of years before this, Brötzmann, on tour in Chicago, organized a crew of like-minded improvisers from the simmering improv scene there -- first as an octet then a tentet. This band is a road show version of that aggregation which was captured on 1997's superb three-CD Okka disc set. Besides Brötzmann, the group now includes a Swede (Gustafson); a Japanese (Kondo); and a Manhattenite (Parker) as well six musicians from the Windy City.

While the gang of 10 seems to throw everything it can into the one, almost 39 minute, composition, its extreme length leads to an uneven outcome. Sure there's the unparalleled power of MACHINE GUN-style unison horn work -- especially right the beginning and end -- but there are time marking valleys as well as peaks. With nearly everyone allowed solo space, focus is sometimes lost. Kondo's muted trumpet and electronic washes, for instance, seem to go on a bit too long. And the ominous sub theme propelled by the cello may have been better on its own. Still, Bishop's half-gutbucket/half modern trombone proves convincing, as do the eight string acrobatics of Parker and Kessler.

However with the soloists not identified --and all reedists playing tenor saxophone and Brötzmann and Vandermark both playing clarinets -- it's hard to ascribe individual woodwind honors. One would suppose that the most ferocious blowing comes from the German, but whoever plays each part certainly knows his way around a mouthpiece.

Another complaint is that nowhere are the first names of the performers (listed blow) supplied. That may be OK for a Miles Davis session, but these less famous musicians deserve as much acknowledgement as possible. The last name of the cellist is also misspelled.

While STONE/WATER builds up to a multifaceted climax, all the parts don't add up to a masterwork like the three-CD THE CHICAGO OCTET/TENTET. Perhaps it was the live situation or the new personalities in the band.

Still if you liked the earlier session, you'll probably favor this one as well. And if you don't own the limited-edition three-CD set this can be an admirable substitute, especially if you follow the work of any of the horn men.

--Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Stone/Water

Personnel: Toshinoro Kondo (tbrumpet, electronics); Jeb Bishop (trombone); Peter Brötzmann (tenor saxophone, clarinet); Mats Gustafsson (tenor saxophone, flutophone); Ken Vandermark (tenor saxophone, clarinet, bass clarinet); Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello, violin); Kent Kessler, William Parker (basses); Hamid Drake, Michael Zerang (drums)

June 17, 2000