S/D Peter Brotzmann

thank you

Brilliant! I have been in love with his Die Like a Dog Quartet a lot this year. I could have sworn the German presenter says something about Mahler in the intro.

... Gustav or Horst?

dunno, but much prefer Gustav.

This was broadcast a couple of months ago and I saw it completely at random -- he mentions Last Exit because they also showed a Last Exit gig directly afterwards.

Mahler = painter. He's quoting Brötzmann about bringing a painter's sensibility to his music.

That's Maler, ofc.

Ja ja, stimmt genau, Herr Professor. Gleiche Aussprache, wollte nur klarstellen und nicht angeben.

"Machine Gun" is one of my go-to things to freak people out. "Hey, have you ever heard this?" [Everyone runs screaming from the room.] I once listened to the whole thing while riding the subway, it was surreal.

― birthday party, cheesecake, jelly beans, boom (tipsy mothra), Wednesday, November 23, 2016 12:29 AM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Interesting. It is because of Machine Gun and Nipples that I'd profoundly misunderstood this man's work for many years. In my early days of discovering free jazz (a backward trajectory probably common to a lot of people my age - I had Dave Burrell's Echo on my want list before I'd heard Archie Shepp) and trying to hear the most 'out' stuff, I'd sorta written PB off as a macho, overblowing fire music guy. It really wasn't until seeing him play live, and then subsequently hearing his records with people like Louis Moholo, that I really began to understand how nuanced a player he really is.

I still don't totally 'get' guys like Mats Gustafsson, Paal Nilssen-Love (both of whom I have seen play), though I respect their, err, approach. But Brotzmann is a guy I began getting pretty obsessed with after realizing there was a lot more to him than just firepower.

I still don't totally 'get' guys like Mats Gustafsson, Paal Nilssen-Love (both of whom I have seen play), though I respect their, err, approach.

I like The Thing, but I view them as kind of a free jazz outgrowth of guys like Red Prysock - there was a compilation series called Honkers and Bar Walkers on Delmark some years back that compiled a whole bunch of 1950s R&B-meets-hard bop stuff, with fairly basic rhythms and big, overblown sax solos, and that's where I trace The Thing back to. Their willingness to cover garage-rock songs only strengthens the link IMO. That said, Nilssen-Love's Large Unit is pretty interesting; I recommend their 3CD box, which I reviewed in 2014.

this kind of music is so much better live than on record that the records, in the digital age, feel kind of sad to me. like, they existed to help generate some cash flow for the musicians who made them, and to give them something to sell at gigs, and, often & most importantly imo, to document things that had happened in the live arena which would not happen again and which represented growth-points/advances. I don't know, but I'd imagine, that when the bottom dropped out of physical sales, it really really dropped out for free jazz physical sales. but anyway if you happen to live in a town where you can see free improv often enough that it becomes familiar, that's an experience worth having -- I was in Chicago in '95/'96 seeing Vandermark & Gustafsson when he came through & others and the live experience felt like The Actual Deal and the recordings more like souvenirs.

This is otm. Especially since a lot of great 90s free jazz albums--and reissues--were CD only (I'm thinking of labels like Eremite) and remain so to this day. I'm guessing there aren't a lot of people scouring the racks for Sabir Mateen and Susie Ibarra CDs now, which is a shame.

"Souvenirs" is exactly the right word, and I've certainly bought CDs that ended up as such. I remember coming home from one of the Vision festivals with handfuls of latter-day Alan Silva and Raphe Malik CDs, and I can't say I spent a lot of time listening to any of them. On the other hand, those gigs I witnessed are burned permanently into my brain.

https://www.thewire.co.uk/images/artists/broetzmann__peter/Broezmannscan02rdfin-ben.jpg

Well the Brotzmann/Haino show tonight in SF was a hell of a thing.

hey did you see any other librarians there? a librarian friend of mine was there.

he was very excited to be there and i am not a big fan of either but i was kinda jealous because it sounds like quite an experience

was it like just endless intense free skronk blowing?

Saw them together a few years ago - Haino definitely wasn't playing at his normal peak volume, and at times they were almost like a mutant version of Sonny Rollins/Jim Hall - that's to say the whole thing was jazzier than I maybe would've expected. Still plenty fierce in places of course, w/ Brotz more than holding his own.

Happy 80th to the Brotz! (Tomorrow, actually.) I wrote something.

Great piece, HB Brotz, thank you for yr huge and endlessly rewarding discography

Speaking of which I am just now getting around to this trio with Maâlem Moukhtar Gania & Hamid Drake that came out last yr and is just great

https://idischidiangelica.bandcamp.com/album/the-catch-of-a-ghost

Holy shit I didn't know that existed somehow, the WELS concert is a desert island disc for me, I'm losing it.

So...this happened:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_vruhZkAO4

Making fun of free jazz like it's 1965. (To be fair, it's probably one of the larger audiences Brotzmann has reached.)

Sounds like Brotz (per his exchange with Heather Leigh that she posted) doesn't really care, which isn't a big shock.

Like I mentioned on Twitter, if this same thing had happened when I was in high school and Jay Leno played a bit of "Nipples" and said it was awful, I would have hit the ground running the next morning trying to find a copy and I'm sure kids are doing the same thing today.

And for the record I hated Fallon before it was cool

I'm just surprised that Questlove sat there and chuckled along without saying anything, that dude knows Brotzmann's legacy/collabs for sure.

The jazz "jokes" would have been dated during the Steve Allen-era Tonight Show

Re: Questlove, not entire surprised as it reminds me of why Wynton Marsalis quit The Tonight Show - he got sick of having to suck up to a smarmy ass wipe like Leno. Fallon is basically Leno-lite.

*entirely

Yeah, I guess it's not his place to push back on the boss' stupid bits like that, just bugs me knowing he has a much deeper appreciation for music than that dumb skit allows for.

if this same thing had happened when I was in high school and Jay Leno played a bit of "Nipples" and said it was awful, I would have hit the ground running the next morning trying to find a copy and I'm sure kids are doing the same thing today.

I doubt very much that they are

You don't think there are weird kids these days who like dissonant music? There might not be a lot of them but I'm positive they exist.

I'm just going to guess that weird kids who like dissonant music aren't watching Fallon at all now that shit like that is easily avoided (until something like goes viral, that is).

The problem is that now social media is full of cranky middle-aged fuckers typing in all caps about HOW DARE JIMMY FALLON MAKE FUN OF THE GREAT PETER BRÖTZMANN and nothing makes a teenager/young person LESS likely to investigate something than seeing an old person rave about it.

The funny thing to me is I literally played Machine Gun for my older kid just last week. He dug it.

The problem is that now social media is full of cranky middle-aged fuckers typing in all caps about HOW DARE JIMMY FALLON MAKE FUN OF THE GREAT PETER BRÖTZMANN and nothing makes a teenager/young person LESS likely to investigate something than seeing an old person rave about it.

― but also fuck you (unperson), Thursday, September 9, 2021 3:35 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes clearly it is the jazz police who are the problem

I'm a sovereign jazz citizen and I'm placing you all under arrest

https://cdn.smehost.net/milesdaviscom-uslegacyprod/wp-content/uploads/1985/04/youreunderarrest.jpg

Brotzmann feels like a serious outlier among those 4. I suspect Questlove and Dumbass Fallon are probably both fans, testing the waters to see if they could get away with playing difficult free jazz on NBC in 2021. They've become jaded with the monotony of their depressingly bleak programming.

Heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba Heyba heeba hobba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba

https://www.stereogum.com/2119421/jimmy-fallon-did-a-bit-about-a-song-by-obscure-slint-offshoot-king-kong/news/

Heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba Heyba heeba hobba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba

Schwarzwaldfahrt inspired my neighbors to call the jazz police on one occasion.

https://frinkiac.com/meme/S07E07/1159090.jpg?b64lines=SSBoZWFyZCBKaW1teSBGYWxsb24gbWFkZSAKZnVuIG9mIFBldGVyIEJyw7Z0em1hbm4gYW5kIAphdGUgYWxsIHRoZSBQZXRlciBCcsO2dHptYW5uIAphbmQgdGhleSBoYWQgdG8gY2xvc2UgCnRoZSBQZXRlciBCcsO2dHptYW5uLg==

Fallon was so mean about like, literal children. What a prick. Why would you do that? The whole bit is mean-spirited and shitty.

Schwarzwaldfahrt inspired my neighbors to call the jazz police on one occasion.

was wondering when this fab record was gonna get a mention

^^^ sickest jams

The whole bit is mean-spirited and shitty.

otm, I've never watched the show beyond the occasional viral musical clip, but that is a seriously low-rent segment, just dunking on musicians. wtf. I thought his whole shtick was that he was like an inoffensive nice guy

idk, man, it's a cheap bit but then again most Fallon things kind of revel in cheap emotions (nostalgic recognition, juxtaposition, epic baconness, applause) that aren't exactly "jokes" per se.

Heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba Heyba heeba hobba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba

Heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba Heyba heeba hobba hooba hooba hobba
Heyba heyba heyba hooba hooba hobba

whichever boomer hipster on Fallon's staff that got King Kong and Brotzmann played is definitely responsible for getting a Mark Prindle CDR on the segment a few months back

Are boomers aware of Mark Prindle? He's in his 40s.

'The Jazz Police' was the original title for 'The Dream of the Blue Turtles' iirc

I have mentioned it elsewhere but this record is the one that first opened me up to his work. I was 19 and just bobbing through the freeform CDs and picked it out cuz I usually liked Okka Disk stuff. among my favorite records upon first hearing it and one that has always been close.

https://peterbroetzmann.bandcamp.com/album/the-wels-concert

Yeah, I just wrote a long piece about his work with Gnawa musicians, and even got a short quote from him via email, from last month.

my neighbors called the cops once when i played one of his records kinda loud, i wasn't absolutely blasting it or anything. i'll never forget that.

Ha, I listened to No Nothing (one of his solo records, and a favorite of mine) a lot at home one summer with the windows open, and the neighbors asked my mom if I’d just taken up the saxophone and was struggling with it.

Peter Brötzmann (1941–2023)

As a tribute to the German saxophonist who has died at the age of 82, we have made David Keenan’s epic two-part 2012 interview, and Daniel Spicer’s guide to Brötzmann’s many recordings, free to read in our online library:https://t.co/RoMUBJrgqq

— The Wire Magazine (@thewiremagazine) June 23, 2023

Peter Brötzmann (1941–2023)

As a tribute to the German saxophonist who has died at the age of 82, we have made David Keenan’s epic two-part 2012 interview, and Daniel Spicer’s guide to Brötzmann’s many recordings, free to read in our online library:https://t.co/RoMUBJrgqq

— The Wire Magazine (@thewiremagazine) June 23, 2023

https://www.thewire.co.uk/in-writing/essays/an-exceptional-human-being-tributes-to-peter-brotzmann

Slightly belated obituary in the Guardian in the course of which it's
revealed that Bill Clinton was a fan! Who knew?!?!

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jul/11/peter-brotzmann-obituary

Also I saw Joe McPhee play last night and he talked quite movingly about Brotzmann.

"revealed that Bill Clinton was a fan! Who knew?!?!"

Lol

Somehow I remember hearing about that.

Anyone read the Spicer biography yet? Mine arrived just as I was leaving for a work trip. I wish I'd brought it along, but I'm looking forward to starting it as soon as I get home.

Yeah, it's good — not exhaustive like Aidan Levy's Sonny Rollins bio, but covers most of the major career high points, important bands, etc. I'm gonna have a full review in my newsletter in about a month.

Cool, will look forward to reading that.

Just finished the Spicer book, it is a good, a solid overview of his career, specifically musically focused (as Spicer points out early) so not a lot of personal biography. Hit basically everything you could have wanted it to and I thought it was interesting in spots where Brotz seem to move more into the background as Spicer went deep on a certain collaborator or give some wider context. Odd there wasn't any mention of Okka Disk or Eremite records directly, since I know those label heads would have stories to tell.

All that said, I am very ready for someone to write a very gossipy bio, becuz the little bits that appear in Spicer's, the whole split with Jason Adasiewicz was fascinating to me, esp as I was at that gig in Chicago where it happened and had no clue, are hugely tantalizing.

Just started it, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I previously had very little knowledge of PB's early years, and had no idea he was basically mentored by Nam June Paik.

I can't recall where it is (maybe one of the Corbett vs Dempsey monographs?) there is a picture of a very young Brotz working on one of Paik's prepared piano installations, which is amazing to see not least of which becuz it is hard to imagine a baby-faced Brotz

I'll be publishing my full review tomorrow. It's good, though of course as a superfan I wished certain bands/records were included.

There's a gorgeous photo book by Ziga Koritnik out too. I reviewed it alongside the Spicer book for the new Wire. Photos from last past 15 years so, captures another side to him than the macho road warrior persona. Some great solo portraits and action shots, but I was particularly taken with the shots of Brotzmann and his fellow musicians embracing after a gig, sharing a look or a laugh. Some nice short essay by many of his collaborators: Paal Nilssen-Love, Mats Gustafson, Ken Vandermark, Heather Leigh et al plus folks like John Corbett.
https://www.trost.at/ziga-koritnik-broetzmann-in-my-focus.html

Here's my review.

Thanks yall!
From today's DMG Music Gallery newsletter:

This Week’s Sonic Spirit Music Begins with Our Friend, Sax Giant and Road Warrior:

PETER BROTZMANN / JASON ADASIEWICZ / JOHN EDWARDS / STEVE NOBLE - The Quartet (Otoroku 033CD; UK) One of Peter Brotzmann's final concerts, presented on Otoroku. When the label invited Peter to do a residency at Cafe OTO back in February 2023, it had no idea these would be his last ever shows and he played with such power it would have been hard for anyone present to believe he would never play publicly again. Recorded over two nights this grouping of Jason Adasiewicz on vibraphone, John Edwards on bass, and Steve Noble on drums feels especially resonant and personal to Cafe OTO. The first time Peter performed at the venue back in 2010 it was in a trio with John and Steve, so it feels fitting that the last shows he ever played here should also have that trio at its core. There are moments of tenderness to Brotzmann's playing that feels specific to this small group -- one that cuts across three generations -- and in a space that's come to feel like home. Of course, there is dizzying, forceful, single-minded playing, but even amongst a relentless chorus of cymbal splashes and busy vibraphone clusters the lyrical, spacious moments are savored and held onto. As he remarked after at the end of the group's first visit to OTO, "the Quartet is, for us, a great adventure." Peter clearly wanted to play to the end. It was Peter's wish that these recordings should be made public and he was due to finalize the cover design during the week he passed away. Otoroku would like to thank Peter's family for working to fulfill Peter's wishes to release this material. Recorded live at Cafe OTO by Billy Steiger on 10th and 11th February 2023. Mixed by James Dunn. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielesi. Photos by Dawid Laskowski. Pressed in the UK by Vinyl Press. Artwork by Peter Brötzmann. Design by Untiet. The 2-CD version contains both sets from both nights. The discs are housed in a digipak on reverse board and will include photographs from the residency by Dawid Laskowski. The 2-LP version (ROKU 033LP) is an edit of the music played on both nights. It comes as a gatefold 12" printed in reverse board outer-sleeves and includes a pull out with photographs from the residency by Dawid Laskowski.
2 CD Set $31 / 2 LP Set $54

That's a good one; I wrote about it in this month's Stereogum column:

Saxophone titan Peter Brötzmann died on June 22, 2023 after a long battle with respiratory illness. His last live performances were at London’s Cafe OTO on February 10 and 11 of that year, and they’re presented in full on this two-CD set. He’s joined by a band he’d first assembled a decade earlier: vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz, bassist John Edwards, and drummer Steve Noble. The latter two have long been one of the most powerful, hard-driving rhythm sections in UK and European avant-jazz, and they inspired Brötzmann to towering heights on two trio albums, The Worse The Better and Soulfood Available. But when Adasiewicz joined, the music became less of a blowout and much more beautiful. Each of the four sets performed by the quartet was a single long piece running between 32 and 39 minutes, and you can hear blues, swing, romantic balladry and Brötzmann’s trademark passionate cries throughout. RIP.

I just bought this album on Bandcamp, which also features Adasiewicz and drummer Sabu Toyozumi:

https://oldheavenbooks.bandcamp.com/album/hurricane