Peter Brötzmann / Sabu Toyozumi: Triangle - Live At OHM 1987

Free improvisers must be some of the world's most readily connected collaborators. They can strike up an instantaneous dialogue without the need for rehearsal or even a common language. Of course they might not always hit paydirt, but that uncertainty is part of the attraction. However, German reedman Peter Brötzmann, who was a regular visitor to Japan, successfully established potent relationships with many of the country's key figures, notably pianist Masahiko Satoh, multi-instrumentalist Keiji Haino and trumpeter Toshinori Kondo.

With his love of drummers, it was inevitable that Brötzmann would also hook up with Sabu Toyozumi. This 1987 date from Tokyo's OHM is not their first meeting as two previous encounters are documented in the drummer's discography. So by this stage they both knew what to expect to some degree. Triangle presents eight cuts which vary between two and fourteen minutes. One of the most travelled of Japanese musicians (even briefly joining Chicago's AACM in 1971), Toyozumi provides a cosmopolitan rhythmic pulse, sensitive to the reedman's changes of pace.

For his part, Brötzmann both lives up to and belies his reputation, There is iron-lunged fire breathing aplenty, but he tempers the anticipated outbursts of ferocity with both subdued murmurs and careworn lyricism. Does Brötzmann dial back his sound, or is he moving away from the mic purposely or inadvertently? Impossible to know, but the occasional muted volume of the reeds lends the session a novel dynamic and allows greater prominence for Toyozumi's percussive expression.

Although the expected signature bellows are present, Brötzmann rarely sustains them for the whole piece until the final "Peter & Sabu's Points" where his roaring tenor saxophone goes all out against an urgent rolling tattoo. Elsewhere he switches easily from fury to bathos. On the opening "Spinal Column" full force shrieks eventually give way to variations on the favorite melody, which also appears at the end of "Yuh-ru Yuru," and was finally codified as "Master Of A Small House" on Tales Out Of Time (Hatology, 2004).

Other tracks wax more textural from the outset, like the gently keening and slurred tarogato runs against Toyozumi's jagged beats of the title number, or the throaty clarinet burblings with accompanying chimes on "Valentine Chocolate." While this set may not be essential Brötzmann, it offers the opportunity to hear the reed iconoclast in unfamiliar surroundings and making use of an atypical palette.

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