Jazz Articles about Peter Brötzmann

Peter Brotzmann: The Complete Machine Gun Sessions

by Troy Collins
August 14, 2007

An essential recording, Machine Gun's rightful place in the pantheon of seminal free jazz recordings is uncontested. The first major document of European free improvisation, Atavistic's Unheard Music Series reissue supplements the legendary session by bolstering the original album with two alternate takes and the only documented live performance of the furious title track.

Envisioned and organized by infamous German tenor saxophonist Peter Brötzmann (nicknamed Machine Gun by trumpeter Don Cherry), Machine Gun provided a blueprint for such ...

Peter Br

by Mark Corroto
July 21, 2007

The milestones of the 66 year old German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann's career are a useful device by which to review his prolific and passionate music making. From early experiments with Alexander von Schlippenbach and the Globe Unity Orchestra, he gained jazz infamy with an octet recording called Machine Gun (FMP, 1968). Aptly named, the unrelenting surge of three saxophones (Brötzmann, Evan Parker and Willem Breuker) over piano, double drummers and double bassists, announced a new energy in European free music--one ...

Peter Brotzmann/Michael Zerang: Live In Beirut

by Mark Corroto
July 2, 2007

Perhaps you do know it all. That is, you believe you know what Peter Brötzmann sounds like. Certainly, if you have been paying attention for the last forty years, his blasting machine gun saxophone has caused you to either turn up the volume or turn it way down.

To those who believe that “if it is too loud, than you are too old, this duo record with Michael Zerang will not disappoint. But, if you are also a ...

Peter Brötzmann & Joe McPhee Quartet in Tel Aviv

by Eyal Hareuveni
June 2, 2007

Peter Brötzmann & Joe McPhee Quartet Levontin 7 Tel Aviv, Israel May 15, 2007

Writers tend to describe the blowing of German reed player Peter Brötzmann in terms of meteorological abnormalities. There is some truth in such metaphors, but such writers miss a much broader spectrum of articulations in Brötzmann playing. This wide spectrum was featured in his first ever concert in Tel Aviv, beginning with a solo set, following an impressive ...

An Exhausting Broztmann and Bennink

by Erik R. Quick
October 26, 2006

Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink An Die Musik Baltimore, MD October 7, 2006

Few, if any, would claim that Peter Brötzmann is a tune meister. He has been referred to by some as a “sonic terrorist", while others describe his performances as “aural punishment". One story, perhaps fictional but credible nonetheless, relates that his explosive playing once caused him to burst a lung. Whatever the description, one does not expect an evening with ...

Brotzmann / Mangelsdorff / Sommer: Pica Pica

by James Taylor
September 5, 2006

Pica Pica is an all-star affair featuring the trio of Peter Brötzmann (reeds), Albert Mangelsdorff (trombone) and Gunter Sommer (drums), originally recorded in 1982 at Jazzfest Unna in Germany. Dug out of the FMP archives for Atavistic's Unheard Music Series, Pica Pica is now available here in the States.

The pairing of Mangelsdorff, an innovator on trombone through his use of polyphonics, with the gut busting, reed-biting tenor of Brötzmann is intriguing to say the least. Not to say that ...

Peter Brotzmann Group: Alarm

by Nic Jones
September 5, 2006

Any Brötzmann group utilising material based upon the graphic instructions for a reaction to a nuclear emergency is never going to lack visceral intensity, and this music proves that with megawatts to spare.

If the Brötzmann octet that put together the epochal Machine Gun (FMP, 1968) might be said to have been playing in response to the political and social times, the same is true of this music, cognisant as it is with the fractious state of Cold War relations ...