S/D Peter Brotzmann

Atavistic has rereleased various records from the same period, and the reviews have been favorable to them as well.

The first Last Exit record is swell (c. mid 80s), and worthy of attention. (Bill Laswell, Ronald Shannon Jackson, and I believe Sonny Sharrock make up the rest of the band.)

I also have his 'no nothing' solo rec and '3 points in a mountain' is also pretty varied, not a blow out: has bennik and misha mengelberg (sp?) in it.

I have to get FMP130 one of these days but its just been released.

Has anyone heard him playing with Carla Bley? It sounds pretty funny from what I've heard abt it but i think that has the earliest Brotzmann on tape.

since then I have heard a few recs with harry miller/moholo as the rhythm section and they were pretty special so hopefully they'll reish that trio rec they made with brotzmann.

Excellent Last Exit discs include the first one, Headfirst Into The Flames and Cassette Recordings 87 (also sold under the name From The Board).

All the stuff I've heard with Bennink, van Hove, et al. is great; I tend to reach for _FdB_ more than any of the others for some inexplicable reason.

The _Shadows_ album with Keji Haino and Shoji Hano is a pretty wild ride as well.

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PB minus TWO HOURS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Saw him last night. They were giving out cotton wool, behind the bar, for people who were finding it too loud! Jazz, eh?

It's standard practice to give out earplugs at rock concerts in mainland Europe, but that's the first time I've heard of it being done in the UK or at a jazz gig. I can understand why they did it, though. This Hairy Bones quartet is Brötzmann's most intense and unforgiving configuration at the moment. When I saw them last year in Vienna there was, unusually for Brötzmann, no interval. Just a savage 90-minute squall of sound.

Yah, we lucked out, it was supposed to be two different gigs, 10 quid each, but I assume they couldn't sell enough tickets so instead it became a 3 hour gig with a 1 hour interval

Brotzmann is on fire recently, his Full Blast trio album Risc and the album with Portuguese band Black Bombain are both brilliant imo.

Yeah, the Black Bombaim album is great. I haven't heard Risc yet, but I like Full Blast a lot.

oops Black Bombainm even.

I've not heard any other Full Blast albums to compare it with, but I will definitely be seeking them out because it is glorious.

If you can find the version of their album Black Hole that's a 2CD set with a bonus live disc, grab it.

I saw him earlier this yr, and while may have hung back slightly a few times (he did admittedly play two set w/ two different group that night) when he hit it, he still hit it hard.

In fact the first twenty minutes or so of his set with Steve Noble/John Edwards/Jason Adasiewicz was close being about the very best improvised music I have ever heard.

He's also played a set with Heather Leigh where he uncorked a brief flurry of notes, so fluid and pretty and smooth that I was dumbstruck.

Dude is the best. The best.

Glad to finally get a cd of Iron Path by Last Exit over the last year. Do love that lp. Would love more like that.

Do love PB's son Caspar's Massaker especially Home too.

I haven't seen him live in at least 15 years—one of the shows I saw was recorded, and the other was a Die Like A Dog set at Tonic with Roy Campbell subbing in for Toshinori Kondo. I need to see him live again if/when he ever comes back to NYC. Seems like he mostly tours the middle of the country these days.

i seriously debated going to philly for the brotzmann/heather leigh set, lack of nyc shows was a huge drag

totally agree on the black bombaim album, it rules

I drove from Mpls to Chicago to see him, in part cuz I really wanted to see the duo set Heather Leigh, I love that record and it was totally worth it.

just picked up born broke the other day, brotzmann + uuskyla, it's awesome, i was very impressed. i haven't listened to much brotzmann since never too late but always too early w/ william parker & hamid drake. on second disc of born broke he gets almost lyrical at times

Fantastic color footage of the Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink trio on German TV. The performance is from 1974, but it was broadcast much later (I can tell 'cause the announcer talks about Last Exit during the intro, so it's gotta be from at least 1986 or '87).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1T-Pxkp6SY

whoa - thanks for this!!

"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.

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.

Colbert really put a lot more effort into the same kind of bit: https://www.cc.com/video/o1qorx/the-colbert-report-who-s-not-honoring-me-now-the-macarthur-foundation

Baby hooba hooba
see my little tartie
we'll be talking later we've got plans for you now

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

Wasn't that a Cheap Trick song?

― birdistheword, Friday, September 10, 2021 7:31 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

It was a jazzy album Sting made after he left The Police, I was making a crap joke, sorry.

that is the one weak track on Leonard Cohen's "I'm Your Man" --

:-(

Facts: a statement from Peter Brötzmann about his health situation pic.twitter.com/dXYyYm7DE9

— Heather Leigh (@wishimage) March 23, 2023

man, I hope he is on the mend, this is a major dude.

Truly sucks to hear this, and hoping for the best. That one time I caught him with Keiji Haino was a hell of a night.

He played in London last month - sold out in seconds flat so I couldn't go. Hoping he recovers.

The only jazz gig I've ever been to where they were handing out ear plugs before the concert was by Herr Brötzmann (of course)!

RIP to the good man.

:(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbVpx5-XYng

Great, great artist. RIP

RIP, peter

rip. somehow missed the brotzmann/leigh duo when they played here, but have an enduring memory of the one time i did see him: a hulking form in a long coat wandering around port chalmers puffing away on a cigar before filling an ex-masonic hall with the most glorious sounds.

:-(

Farewell to the legendary free-jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann (1941-2023). Though he's known for his fearsomely fierce improvisations, he was also a great visual artist. This publication is just amazing. pic.twitter.com/X67z0WZ04v

— Robin Rimbaud - Scanner (@robinrimbaud) June 23, 2023

truly saddened by this news, just a total GOAT.

Are there any other of his recordings more in the vein of Last Exit's Iron Path?

I would say, the other Last Exit albums?

RIP, this dude was awesome.

Are there any other of his recordings more in the vein of Last Exit's Iron Path?

Anything by the group Full Blast. I interviewed the other two guys in the band a few years ago.

I really like the album he did with Black Bombaim.

Yeah, that's a great one, too. It's on Bandcamp.

I read an interview with him once, probably in The Wire, where he was castigating Laswell and the whole Last Exit project as being completely against the spirit of improvisation, by the time they got to Iron Path anyway. I think Laswell took it over and started trying to move them towards the sound of his over-produced digi-dub projects, which figures.

Yeah, Iron Path is a Laswell album featuring the members of Last Exit. It's really good, but to get the real flavor of their stuff you've gotta listen to the live records. If you can find the one from the 1986 Moers Festival, with Billy Bang and Diamanda Galás guesting, it's well worth your time.

He was still touring this year, as a solo act and with a band. (see YouTube) Amazing to the very end.

I'd also recommend the Hairy Bones album he did with Pupillo, Kondo and Nilssen-Love as being particularly wild. Plus the Die Like A Dog stuff, of course.

Iron Path is a Laswell album featuring the members of Last Exit.

What do you think of his production on the later Pharoah Sanders records?

I am not an expert but feel lucky to have seen him play once with Heather Leigh - and while there was some ferocious playing, it is the tender passages that I remember most, felt like he was articulating distant memories, very beautiful.

Saw him in a duo with Derek Bailey in London, maybe 1996. Way more abstract and less full-on than I was expecting at the time, but all the better for it.
RIP, bonus shout-out too for having sired Caspar.

don't like to chime in on RIP threads usually but this one hurts. 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.

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