peter brötzmann

Peter Brötzmann | Photo: Gérard Rouy

In his notes to Die Like A Dog, FMP CD 64, 1993, Peter Brötzmann writes of his relationship to Albert Ayler: “We both tried to do similar or almost identical things at the same point in time, each independently and without knowing anything about the other – each of us within his own culture.” This review, written in 1977, assumed from recorded documentation - For Adolphe Saxe in particular - more of a direct influence of Ayler’s music on Brötzmann’s. I believe the review stands as a partial comparative analysis of the players’ respective musical approaches. - Henry Kuntz, 2007

FOR ADOLPHE SAXE FMP 0080

Peter Brötzmann / tenor and baritone saxes, Peter Kowald / bass, Sven Ake Johansson /drums.
Recorded by Günter Schütte in June 1967 in Wuppertal. Produced by Peter Brötzmann.
SIDE A: 1. For Adolphe Sax (19:13) SIDE B: 1. Sanity (4:43) 2. Morning glory (16:07) All compositions by Peter Brötzmann. Cover: Design by Peter Brötzmann. Photographs by Ute Klophaus. Remark: Reissued on CD by Atavistic(UMS/ALP230CD) plus bonus track.

MACHINE GUN FMP 0090

Peter Brötzmann / tenor and baritone saxes, Willem Breuker / tenor sax, Evan Parker / tenor sax, Fred Van Hove / piano, Buschi Niebergall / bass, Peter Kowald / bass, Sven Ake Johansson /drums, Han Bennink / drums.
Recorded by Günther Zipelius in May 1968 at the Lila Eule in Bremen.Produced by Peter Brötzmann. SIDE A: 1. Machine Gun (Brötzmann) 17:13 SIDE B: 1. Responsible [for Jan Van de Ven] (Van Hove) 8:12 2. Music for Han Bennink 1 (Breuker) 11:22 Soloists A: Parker, Van Hove, Breuker, Brötzmann Soloists B1: Brötzmann, Van Hove, Parker, Breuker Soloists B2: Johansson, Bennink, Brötzmann, Breuker, Van Hove. Cover: Design by Peter Brötzmann. Photographs by Paul-Gerhard Deker. Remark: Released on CD by FMP (FMP CD 24) plus 2 alternate takes.

“BALLS” FMP 0020

Peter Brötzmann / tenor sax, Fred Van Hove / piano, Han Bennink / drums.
Recorded by Wolfgang Bukatz on August 17th,1970 in Berlin. Supervision by Hans-Dieter Frankenberg. Produced by Jost Gebers. SIDE A: 1. Balls (Brötzmann) 14:33, 2. Garten - für Angelika (Brötzmann) 6:13 SIDE B: 1. Filet Americain (Van Hove) 8:17, 2. De daag Waarop…. (Bennink) 11:14 Cover: Design by Peter Brötzmann. Photographs by Wolfgang Wilke. Remark: Reissued on CD by Atavistic (UMS/ALP233CD).

BRÖTZMANN - VAN HOVE - BENNINK FMP 0130

Peter Brötzmann / clarinet, alto,tenor, baritone, and bass saxes, Fred Van Hove / celeste, piano, Han Bennink / drums, khene, rhythm-box, self-made clarinet, gachi, oe-oe, voice, tins, homemade junk, elong, dhung, kaffir piano, dhung-dkar.
Recorded by Dietram Köster on February 25th,1973 in Bremen. Supervision by Peter Schulze. Produced by Jost Gebers.SIDE A: 1. For Donaueschingen ever (Bennink) 3:40 2. Konzert für 2 Klarinetten (Brötzmann) 4:07 3. Nr. 7 (Brötzmann) 3:20 4. Wir haben uns folgendes überlegt (Van Hove) 2:56 5. Paukenhänschen im Blaubeerwald (Bennink) 5:56 6. Nr. 9 (Brötzmann) 1:35 SIDE B: 1. Gere bij (Van Hove) 5:25 2. Nr. 4 (Brötzmann) 4:45 3. Nr. 6 (Brötzmann) 5:33 4. Donaueschingen for ever (Bennink) 2:27 Cover: Design by Peter Brötzmann. Photographs by Krista Brötzmann and Dagmar Gebers. Remark: Reissued on CD by Atavistic (UMS/ALP244CD)

OUTSPAN NO. 1 FMP 0180

Peter Brötzmann / alto, tenor, and baritone saxes, Fred Van Hove / piano, Han Bennink / drums, self-made clarinet, homemade junk, voice, etc., Albert Mangelsdorff / trombone.
Recorded live by Jürgen Lindenau on April 14th & 15th,1974 during the Workshop Freie Musik at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. Produced by Jost Gebers.
SIDE A: 1. Serienze Serie (Van Hove) 16:16 2. Boogie für Fred (Brötzmann) 6:29 SIDE B: 1. Der Spaziergang (Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink/Mangelsdorff) 2:26 2. Outspan 1 (Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink/Mangelsdorff) 18:15 Cover: Artwork and design by Peter Brötzmann.

TSCHÜS FMP0230

Peter Brötzmann / alto, tenor, and bass saxes, clarinet, vocal, Fred Van Hove / piano, akkordeon, Han Bennink / drums, cymbals, schwirrholz, akkordeon, clarinets, floor, walls, megaphone, etc.
Recorded by Jost Gebers on Sunday afternoon September 14th,1975 at the Quartier Latin in Berlin. A 6 is recorded live by Jost Gebers on September 13th,1975 at the Quartier Latin in Berlin. Produced by Jost Gebers. SIDE A: 1. Two birds in a feather - to Bobby Few (Brötzmann) 4:03 2. Ein bischen Jazzbesen (Bennink/Van Hove) 2:17 3. Claptrap (Brötzmann) 5:15 4. Lotteduflotte (Bennink) 1:55 5. Töfftöff (Bennink) 2:00 6. Zigan, Zigan (Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink) 4:54 SIDE B: 1. Petit blues fourré - pur G.R. de Lille (Van Hove) 3:33 2. R.W.SCH (Brötzmann) 4:25 3. 2 B-Klarinetten (Brötzmann) 3:03 4. Bierhaus Wendel (Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink) 6:20 5. Tschüs (composition by Walter Kubiczek, lyrics by Dieter Lietz) 1:26 Cover: Design by Peter Brötzmann. Photographs by Peter Brötzmann and Kurt Staudt.

BRÖTZMANN / SOLO FMP 0360

Peter Brötzmann / alto, tenor and bass saxes, clarinets, piano on one track.
Recorded by Jost Gebers in May 1976 in Berlin. Produced by Peter Brötzmann and Jost Gebers.
SIDE A: 1. Brunches (0:25) 2. Two birds in a feather (4:20) 3. Piece for two clarinets (4:08) 4. Wolke in Hosen (0:22) 5. Der Grieche (5:05) 6. Blue balls (4:30) 7. Scrambag (5:50) SIDE B: 1. Piece for two clarinets (3:25) 2. Humpty dumpty (5:52) 3. Jack-in-the-box (1:50) 4. Twee(D)dldum (9:55) 5. Eine kleine Marschmusik (3:00) All compositions by Peter Brötzmann. Cover: Artwork & design by Peter Brötzmann.

(In his notes to Die Like A Dog, FMP CD 64, 1993, Peter Brötzmann writes of his relationship to Albert Ayler: “We both tried to do similar or almost identical things at the same point in time, each independently and without knowing anything about the other – each of us within his own culture.” This review, written in 1977, assumed from recorded documentation - For Adolphe Saxe in particular - more of a direct influence of Ayler’s music on Brötzmann’s. I believe the review stands as a partial comparative analysis of the players’ respective musical approaches. - Henry Kuntz, 2007)

Aside from Peter Brötzmann’s early and obvious involvement with the music of Albert Ayler, his work as a whole can be seen as a direct application of many of the structural and formal implications of Ayler’s work, though taken from a radically different aesthetic stance. It can be seen as the gradual movement from a heavy-handed, soloistically inclined and pointed music towards one with no real point, able to shift contexts and viewpoints virtually at will.

On For Adolphe Saxe, Brötzmann is still very much under Ayler’s spell itself - utilizing, however, Ayler-like ideas in a non-thematic framework. It’s a highly agitated “energy” music, every bit as intense as anything Ayler did, and it largely succeeds on those terms. It doesn’t really go beyond Ayler in any aesthetic sense, yet in starting from the non-thematic framework - these may well have been totally improvised pieces - Brötzmann has almost, if not quite, freed the music to stand on its own, outside of the load of thematic associations built up by Ayler. Yet the aesthetic/thematic aspects of Ayler’s work and his manner of dealing with them defined his/our predicament, both personally and musically. And though Brötzmann here - in divorcing those aspects from it - has begun to show a way beyond that predicament, it hasn’t quite been grasped.

His playing itself is extremely Ayler-influenced, though even on this record he manages to convey something of a sense of himself, pushing and driving the music in his own particularly coarse and high-strung manner. Johansson, meanwhile, plays the role of a strong-armed Sunny Murray - floating freely, but in a barrage of sound - while bassist Kowald keeps up a shifting counterpoint, offering some fantastically fluent (and harmonically and timbrally advanced) bowed work.

Machine Gun, featuring the Brötzmann Octet, is the first of several important European recordings of large group improvisation to be made at about the same time (1968-70), the others being Manfred Schoof’s European Echoes (FMP 0010), Alexander von Schlippenbach’s The Living Music (FMP 0100), Just Music (ECM 1002), and Groupcomposing (ICP 006).

The piece “Machine Gun” comprises all of side one of Brötzmann’s record and, while perhaps the most brazen of any of the music referred to above, it is also the most mechanical and structurally conscious of any of them (Just Music and Groupcomposing being the least so). It is very much music with a point, the point being a political one (calculated to shock), and it is extremely energy oriented, though it is mainly built around individual soloists. Of the three saxophonists, Evan Parker is the most studied, Brötzmann the most purely cathartic, and Willem Breuker the most scorchingly eloquent. Breuker, in fact, can be heard blazing whole new areas of sound - hear, as well, his 1967 date with Han Bennink, New Acoustic Swing Duo (ICP 001) - areas he would later (seemingly) abandon, and which in retrospect seem to have been picked up on by Evan Parker.

Peter Brötzmann | Photo: Gérard Rouy

The compositions on the album’s reverse side, by Breuker and Fred Van Hove, actually flow better than the title track and deal with a wider range of ideas. Of the two, Breuker’s is the more sophisticated, showing compositional balance, an interest in dynamic contrast and in textural/sound differentiation. Brötzmann’s solos on these pieces (the first on baritone sax) are especially good. He’s very much his own player now – Ayler is only an inspiration - the saxophone itself, with every sound available to it, being its own justification for what he plays. For him, the instrument has nearly transcended the idea of being an “instrument” and has become simply a sound producer.

Brötzmann’s next recording, Nipples (Calig-Verlag CAL 30604, recorded 1969), presents his first highly individualistic music, though its energy-conscious aesthetic still generally reflects the principles around which Machine Gun was built.

“Balls” is the first instance of Brötzmann’s art coming into its own. It begins to bring together a whole range of disparate musical ideas and elements, and while not foregoing the intensity of the period prior to this, that is no longer the point of the music, only a point of reference in an open-ended, overlapping collage of colors, shapes, styles, and textures. It’s a music that begins to strain musical contexts (an idea heard of late in offerings by the Globe Unity Orchestra and also taken up in somewhat different guise by certain of the younger English musicians on Teatime, Incus 15), and presents an expansive avant-garde extravaganza which, by implication, might accept anything under its roof - including, especially in the later recordings reviewed, quite a great deal of humor.

The relationship of this to Albert Ayler’s music - though it sounds considerably different - is that it is the first direct (taken, as it were, on Ayler’s own terms) and large scale acceptance of the depth of structural and formal possibilities suggested by his work (and beyond simple spatial/temporal differentiation among those playing), possibilities implied by Ayler’s constantly shifting frames of reference, his openess to extremes - made all the more blatant by his insistent, if often ambiguous, thematicism - and his willingness to let those co-exist within any single aesthetic moment. Yet while for Ayler his music was always a very serious music - even the humor was “serious” humor - exuding the anguish of the inability to effect an existential (or spiritual) reconciliation of the disparities of his art (life), for Brötzmann this is not so much a problem, only a matter of recognition.

Peter Brötzmann | Chantenay-Villedieu, France 1984. Photo: Gérard Rouy

So Brötzmann has not only drawn out and extended Ayler’s particular structural contributions - accepting the extremities and the openess to swift, cataclysmic change - but he has widened them onto the whole stage of life (the process itself becoming more open, less intentional) and has altered their sense profoundly. So Ayler’s tragic sense becomes Brötzmann’s comic sense; Ayler’s (open) resignation, Brötzmann’s acceptance - the acceptance being one of flow (non-attachment), however, rather than of submission.

“Balls” is the first movement of Brötzmann’s music - or what has now become the music of Brötzmann / Van Hove / Bennink - in this direction, the main difference between it and the later records being a difference in what is emphasized about it. That would be something like the difference between a music primarily concerned with textural/rhythmic/timbral and temporal differentiation with assorted stylistic allusions and one with greater melodic (or motivic) and stylistic diversification with the textural/rhythmic/tlmbral and temporal elements flowing from that.

“Balls” and the Free Music Market LPs (Elements, Couscous, The End - FMP 0030, 0040, 0050 - reviewed above) document the first - and probably more far reaching - period of this music, with the latter three albums being the most important. In many ways, the music on “Balls” is just as good, but the looseness and spontaneity generated by the live recording situation is only partially heard here.

Han Bennink’s importance to the outcome of this music has to be emphasized. His all-encompassing, swashbuckling rhythmic approach almost singlehandedly defines its shape, density, flow, and overall emotional sense at any given moment. His work is a total textural and tonal assault, working in areas (and with instruments) not generally thought of as percussive, extending both the range of sound (often for its own sake) and the way of moving with it – i.e., in long, protracted, and pitch-conscious areas as well as in those more traditonally identifiable as rhythmic-percussive. While Brötzmann mainly explores the extreme harmonic, timbral, and pitch characteristics of his horn, Van Hove provides coloring, stylistic variation, and a fair amount of rhythmic tension, depending on what direction his lines happen to be moving in.

The comparison may not be quite right, but Van Hove’s playing reminds me in part of the role Call Cobbs attempted to play with Albert Ayler. (And if Cobbs is to be criticized for that role, he has to be criticized for his apparent lack of self-consciousness about it - his inability to open it up - rather than for what he was actually playing. For if Ayler could bring themes into his music such as were referred to by LeRoi Jones as “coonish, churchified, chuckle tunes,” there’s no reason why, in a music as full of extremes as his, he couldn’t have Cobbs playing alongside of him in a largely blues and gospel inflected style.) Van Hove, however, as fits the nature of Brötzmann’s music, brings to that role an open rather than a limited (”down home”) eclecticism - one that reaches to include the musics of the world yet is wrapped within his own inimitable style. At its best, say, on the introduction to “Gere Bij” (based on a slant of the theme “Over There”) on Brötzmann / Van Hove / Bennink (FMP 13), he jars and opens the sensibilities with his skillful and humorous blend of pop, classical, and avant-garde motifs - all in the space of a few bars of music - and then goes chasing after Brotzmann as in a slapstick comedy. Reflecting on his work, it would be interesting to know just what influence over the years Van Hove has had on Brötzmann and Bennink, for the group’s later music comes more and more to incorporate precisely those kinds of broad, humorous, and melodically inclined stylistic options with which he has always been the most involved.

Peter Brötzmann | Albert Mangelsdorff | Gand, Belgium 1972. Photo: Gérard Rouy

Between the trio’s later work and the Free Music Market LPs, FMP 13 forms something of a link. It is still largely involved in the discovery of more strictly “musical” extensions, but also becoming more self-consciously eclectic (though still formally original) and humorous. The importance of the music is its conciseness. There’s not a single track over six minutes long, yet it still manages to cover as extensive an amount of ground (and more so) as any of the longer pieces on the earlier or later records. Its flow is organic, even with all its internal disorder, and it moves easily in and out of phase and context with itself, never becoming merely “sectional” in its development. As self-enclosed aesthetic entities, these pieces are even better than some of the longer ones, yet the longer ones allow for a greater overall spontaneity and formal flexibility. On “Nr. 4” and “Nr. 6,” there are also some particularly good and intense solos by Brötzmann (the latter on baritone sax) - blurring registers and harmonic differences and simultaneously bringing together various intervallic points of reference.

Outspan 1 and Outspan 2 (# 2 reviewed above) show the group entering almost completely into the stylistic divergence and eclectic incongruity that was only a part of their music before. Number 2 seems to me to be the looser and better of these two, as it captures the group plunging headlong into the spirit of fun, abandon, and general amused merriment that this approach allows. Outspan 1 tows a more middle ground. There are splashes of energy, of comic relief, sometimes colored with somber-toned underpinnings by Van Hove. Yet it lacks the full-fledged intensity of the Free Music Market LPs, or the rollicking wit of Outspan 2, and it fails to approach the developmental complexity of FMP 13. Still, there’s some solid, hardy, and not inconsequential music - as, for example, Brötzmann blasting away on baritone sax on “Boogie für Fred,” or the free collective improvisation that rages midway through “Outspan 1” itself, or the absorbing (chordal) trombone work of Albert Mangelsdorff.

Alexander von Schlippenbach | Peter Brötzmann | Peter Kowald | Wuppertal, Germany 1976. Photo: Gérard Rouy

Again - though it sounds entirely different - I have to mention the relationship of this to Albert Ayler’s music: namely, the frequent juxtaposition (at times seemingly unrelated) of melodic/thematic elements with sections of free improvisation - similar in structure if not in intent to the Ayler of Bells, Spirits Rejoice and, partially, Live In Greenwich Village.

Tschüs is a curious album in that a good part of the time it attempts to isolate some of the music’s textural/timbral/formal and stylistic elements (like FMP 13, it is made up of a number of shorter tracks) and to allow them to stand on their own. In a way, this is alright, since they are usually fairly disassociated from each other anyway. Yet, aesthetically speaking, things begin to sound a bit closed in, and there is more the sense of musical effect - though it is certainly still musical - for its own sake than, say, to effect developmental surprise or some amount of structural open-endedness. There’s a hint, too, that the group may be at some sort of impasse. Having largely eclipsed at a certain point development along vertical lines (the areas most associated with sound exploration, rhythmic sophistication, and more complex textural interaction) in favor of a mostly fragmented stylistic jumble - a music as much dependent at times on associational references in the minds of its listeners as on any strictly musical factors - the question arises as to how long such development can continue without becoming simply “old hat.” Either more and more references will have to be taken in, it seems, or else the music will have to begin to open up in other ways; or what seems more likely, to effect some healthy reconciliation between stylistic fragmentation and vertical expansion. It would be easy enough to do, given what the group has already done, and Tschüs - though certainly no artistic failure - suggests that now may be the time to do it.

Brötzmann’s solo album continues along the lines put forth on Tschus and the two Outspans, offering pieces (two for two clarinets, played simultaneously) of mainly textural/timbral exploration, one short (25 seconds) energy piece, one march piece, and other half-humorous, tongue-in-cheek, and/or melodic compositions which break down into more and more disassociated and free playing. It would be easy to say there’s nothing that startling here, yet Brötzmann’s playing has an excitedly fine edge to it and is fairly exuberant throughout. It’s also a first opportunity to hear him in this context.[Photo: Gérard Rouy]

If you haven’t heard Brötzmann previously, I’d recommend starting with the Free Music Market LPs - Elements (FMP 0030), Couscous (FMP 0040), The End (FMP 0050) (one or all of these) - then going to FMP 13 or to Outspan 2; after that, perhaps hearing “Balls” or Outspan 1 or the solo album; then getting to Machine Gun, For Adolphe Saxe, or Tschüs.

To emphasize, as I have, the structural relationship of this music to that of Albert Ayler has been in no sense an attempt to diminish its impact. It’s some of the finest music of this decade, able to stand completely on its own. but it seemed important to indicate the musical precedents for its approach. It has helped me, for one, to hear and look more closely at the music of Ayler and Brötzmann both.

Henry Kuntz, 1977

selected Peter Brötzmann recordings on FMP (Free Music Production)