Brotherhood of Breath

[White Lightning]

Yesterday I spun a burnt copy of Brotherhood of Breath - Travelling Somewhere and was blown away!

Great music that combines early 70s Free Jazz big band with South African rhythms.

Any love for this band around here? What other records this band has recorded?

[P.D.]

You might want to try

"Bremen to Bridgewater" a 2CD set

and if interested go back in time via

" Township Bop"

By Chris McGregor and the Blue Notes

Edited October 29, 2004 by P.D.

[Alon Marcus]

Not very familiar with the band but heard their recording with Archie Shepp from 1989. It's a live show recorded at a French festival called:

En Concert a Banlieues Bleues

The music is very good but the quality of recording/sound not so good. The band and Archie most of the time play like they never have heard of these things called free jazz or avant guard. Lots of joy in their playing.

[mke]

Bremen to Bridgwater is good, but the sound quality of the last 2 of the 3 concerts is terrible. The first, good-sounding, concert pre-dates the Travelling Somewhere material as is at times really, really great.

[A Lark Ascending]

I didn't know the Brotherhood themselves when they were active in the early 70s; but I cut my jazz teeth on many of the musicians associated with them, first by hearing them on a Robert Wyatt recording and then by investigating many of the releases on the Ogun label.

I've caught up with the BofB in the last few years. You can get the 1971 'Chris McGregor's Brotherhood of Breath' on CD - its a rather more restrained affair than the live stuff.

As well as the Bremen and Travelling discs mentioned above there's another marvellous live session from 1973 on Ogun called 'Live at Willisau'...one of the few Oguns still in their much reduced catalogue.

I'd also recommend these two:

Both are by a large orchestra Louis Moholo occasionally puts together to celebrate the music of the Blue Notes and Brotherhood musicians. Joyous stuff.

Info on Chris McGregor here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cgi-perl/music/muze/i...artist_id=19730

Bremen to Bridgewater here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/jazz/reviews/mc...or_bremen.shtml

The Cuneiform releases here:

http://cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/brotherhood.html

And a rather good survey of the Ogun catalogue here:

http://nostudium.blogspot.com/2004_04_01_n...um_archive.html

Edited November 1, 2004 by Bev Stapleton