RIP Peter Brotzmann

[Tenor Freak]

It's being reported on the Twitter that Peter Brotzmann has passed away. RIP. Others here who know his work better than I will chime in I'm sure.

[RichardB]

It's being reported on the Twitter that Peter Brotzmann has passed away. RIP. Others here who know his work better than I will chime in I'm sure.

Peter Brötzmann (not Brotzmann!) was of course a legend of European free jazz from its beginnings onward. To see him play in his prime was to experience musical energy and intensity at its most extreme, although the last time I saw him, which was about 8 years ago (in a duo with Steve Noble), his playing had become somewhat more lyrical and less fiery. But he would have been in his mid 70s by then. I think my most impressive live Brötzmann moment was a gig in London by Last Exit (Sonny Sharrock, Brötzmann, Bill Laswell and Ronald Shannon Jackson), like most of his work an infinitely more powerful experience live than in recorded form, apart from seminal outings like Machine Gun (1968), in a way perhaps the ultimate free jazz album, often imitated but never equalled.

[Tenor Freak]

Peter Brötzmann (not Brotzmann!).

Yes I know. No umlaut on this keyboard.

[Bryn]

Yes I know. No umlaut on this keyboard.

The trick is to copy and paste "Brötzmann" from another site.

[RichardB]

Now playing: Peter Brötzmann (bass saxophone) & Bill Laswell (bass guitar) - Low Life (1987)

I don't think PB played bass sax very often, which is a shame. Laswell, apart from his usual thickly textured bass guitar playing, contributes samples and effects which make the album much more varied in timbre than you might expect. Anyway, this is the Brötzmann album I reached for today, I hadn't heard it for a long time and it's even better than I remembered it.

[Joseph K]

I'm going to have to listen to Machine Gun and Low Life when I'm back home (I'm currently at my grandmother's).

[Jazzrook]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/jun/23/peter-brotzmann-legend-of-free-jazz-dies-at-82

'Lady Sings The Blues' from his 2019 solo album 'I Surrender Dear':

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=I2VikOpTZ9A

JR

[RichardB]

Now playing: Peter Brötzmann/Borah Bergman/Anthony Braxton - Eight by Three (1997). Free music at its freeest!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH_yy9MAWjg

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

One hour plus interview with Brötzmann c. 2018 in English. As I didn't know much about his background or indeed his music, I found his explanation about growing up in post war Germany, the silences and the evasions of the FDR really revealing. And the absolute determination, "never again". Even as he says in the interview, the "brown" (neo Nazism) is all around us again.

http://youtu.be/ywtHnhDqZsU

[Serial_Apologist]

One hour plus interview with Brötzmann c. 2018 in English. As I didn't know much about his background or indeed his music, I found his explanation about growing up in post war Germany, the silences and the evasions of the FDR really revealing. And the absolute determination, "never again". Even as he says in the interview, the "brown" (neo Nazism) is all around us again.

http://youtu.be/ywtHnhDqZsU

Good to see a young attentive (I think?) audience, more open to Brötzmann's message than my cynical thoughts might have led me to anticipate.

Here's the London Jazz News tribute:

http://londonjazznews.com/2023/06/27/peter-brotzmann-tribute-by-nachruf-von-ralf-dombrowski/?mtm_campaign=WBH230628

[Jazzrook]

PB Quartet with Toshinori Kondo, William Parker & Hamid Drake at Jazzfest Berlin, 1995:

https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=MHTDPx8LpuQ

JR