Funny Rat

[J.A.W.]

Just listened to this one:

and it's much better than I remembered; in fact, it's a great album, in spite of Irène Aebi's vocal efforts on the last track...

[Guest Chaney]

John: What's the guitar playing like on Jemeel Moondoc & the Jus Grew Orchestra - Spirit House?

[J.A.W.]

I've just listened to this one for the first time:

and I like it; pretty "subdued" Brötz.

[John B]

John: What's the guitar playing like on Jemeel Moondoc & the Jus Grew Orchestra - Spirit House?

Nix works mostly in a support role. He adds color and texture to the ensemble while helping to provide a base for the soloists to take off from.

This disc doesn't seem to get any mention around these parts:

Christopher Cauley - FINland

Cauley is on alto, William Parker is on bass, Greg Bendian is on percussion and Steve Swell plays trombone on four tracks. Other than this disc I am completely unfamiliar with Cauley's work. I picked FINland up based on the rest of the lineup and was not disappointed. The playing is solid and the tunes are nice but, for some reason, this one has yet to really stick with me. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this disc to anyone on this thread, but I would also not say it would need to be anyone's first purchase on Eremite, either.

[Д.Д.]

John: What's the guitar playing like on Jemeel Moondoc & the Jus Grew Orchestra - Spirit House?

The guitar playing is the most "traditional" you can possibly imagine, no distortion, feedback or whatever. In general, the whole disc is not particularly out. It is pretty raw and I suspect quite under-rehearsed; the solos are good but not outstanding, except for Moondoc's, Swell's (the second trombonist is pretty awkward, IMO), and tenorist's; the arrangements are also a bit sloppy - but it is all more than compensated by a nearly palpable feeling of excitement and energy. Good stuff.

For Moondoc on Eremite, I woud highly, HIGHLY recommend (more like insist) Revolt of Negro Lawn Jockeys - for a long time it was one of my favorite "jazz" discs of recent years.

[John B]

For Moondoc on Eremite, I woud highly, HIGHLY recommend (more like insist) Revolt of Negro Lawn Jockeys - for a long time it was one of my favorite "jazz" discs of recent years.

Agreed. I'm working my way through my Moondoc, culminating with Revolt.

[Д.Д.]

Just listened to this one:

and it's much better than I remembered; in fact, it's a great album, in spite of Irène Aebi's vocal efforts on the last track...

There we go.

[Д.Д.]

8th Harmonic Breakdown label is reissuing 2CD Billy Bang set called Sweet Spece / Untitled Gift. With DOn Cherry, Butch Morris, WIlber Morris, Frank Lowe, Denis Charles, Steve McCall and others. Recorded in '79 and '82.

[Gary]

Just listening to Thomas Chapin & Borah Bergman - Inversions for the first time , I definately like Chapin's sound.

[John B]

Just listening to Thomas Chapin & Borah Bergman - Inversions for the first time , I definately like Chapin's sound.

Have you heard any of his albums as a leader? Great stuff!

[John B]

8th Harmonic Breakdown label is reissuing 2CD Billy Bang set called Sweet Spece / Untitled Gift. With DOn Cherry, Butch Morris, WIlber Morris, Frank Lowe, Denis Charles, Steve McCall and others. Recorded in '79 and '82.

That lineup sounds wonderful. No info on AMG on these sessions. Has anyone here heard the original release?

[Gary]

Just listening to Thomas Chapin & Borah Bergman - Inversions for the first time , I definately like Chapin's sound.

Have you heard any of his albums as a leader? Great stuff!

No , this is the first of his that I've heard . Sounds great.

[John B]

No , this is the first of his that I've heard . Sounds great.

If you ever run across a used copy of his boxset on KnitWorks, Alive, grab it! It is now oop and contains most of his albums as a leader, plus a live disc that is, I believe, unreleased elsewhere. The box was fairly inexpensive when it was still available through retail, but I have no idea how much money it runs these days.

Edited July 9, 2004 by John B

[Gary]

No , this is the first of his that I've heard . Sounds great.

If you ever run across a used copy of his boxset on KnitWorks, Alive, grab it! It is now oop and contains most of his albums as a leader, plus a live disc that is, I believe, unreleased elsewhere. The box was fairly inexpensive when it was still available through retail, but I have no idea how much money it runs these days.

Thanks - I'll keep an eye out for it , I remember it being mentioned earlier in the thread with some positive comments . i think the royal poster has a copy if I remember correctly.

[J.A.W.]

Wonderful album:

Cecil Taylor - The Willisau Concert - Intakt

[Gary]

Wonderful album:

Cecil Taylor - The Willisau Concert - Intakt

Thanks to this thread I bought this Cd & totally agree a wonderful cd . A constant barrage of notes that seem to float past your ears.

Edited July 10, 2004 by Gary

[Gary]

Does anybody know this CD by Gary Windo?

I heard a track on the radio the other night which sounded great.

Never heard of him, but the AMG review makes this disc sound interesting. Anyone who played with Moholo and Feza can't be bad.

Great avatar, by the way!

I'll let you know if this CD as a good as the track I heard.

Its my birthday in a couple of weeks so the lovely Mrs Gray threw me her credit card & told me to order 3 CDs for myself & being an obediant husband I had to do it!

I ordered Anglo American & these 2 are top of my current list

[couw]

For some free(er) jazz from the former East, check out this thread on Hannes Zerbe I started in the Artists section.

[Guest Chaney]

Just listened to this one:

and it's much better than I remembered; in fact, it's a great album, in spite of Irène Aebi's vocal efforts on the last track...

There we go.

Wonderful stuff indeed! I don't even mind the vocal presence of Aebi on this one as she seems to blend in well with the band rather than showboating with that faux-operatic style of hers. VERY surprising is just how pretty she sounds when she makes her first entrance. Why... Irene! ... but not quite.

[Д.Д.]

Let us know your opinion about all these CDs.

[Д.Д.]

Wittwer also can be heard on disc in a group including Peter Brötzmann - the name of which is Sprawl (Trost TR 070). The group consist of Brötzmann, Alex Buess (reeds/electr), Wittwer, William Parker and Michael Wertmüller and was recorded in Switzerland in 1996.

ubu, have you had a chance to hear this one by chance? I am very curious. I think Wertmueller is a perfect drummer for Broetzmann, and having an added distorted GUITARRRRRRRRRRR in the mix... what could be better?

[king ubu]

Wittwer also can be heard on disc in a group including Peter Brötzmann - the name of which is Sprawl (Trost TR 070). The group consist of Brötzmann, Alex Buess (reeds/electr), Wittwer, William Parker and Michael Wertmüller and was recorded in Switzerland in 1996.

ubu, have you had a chance to hear this one by chance? I am very curious. I think Wertmueller is a perfect drummer for Broetzmann, and having an added distorted GUITARRRRRRRRRRR in the mix... what could be better?

No, not as of now. The one copy around in Zurich costs 40 franks and is totally beat-up... Here's the label's (Trost) website, and here's the actual disc, at an ok prize. But as shipping is 5 Euros, it would still be pretty expensive - should we order it twice to one of our addresses? I don't know how good it is, though...

Here's the short write up from the above link:

sprawl  s/t  cd  (trost)

€ 14.50

trost's first (free) jazz cd! and a very heavy one - michael wertmüller (alboth) invites his favourite musicians for a one-time session: peter brötzmann (saxes), alex buess (1617, with kevin martin), stephan wittwer (guitar var. projects & filmscores), william parker (bass, plays with cecil taylor). improvisation and composition, dark electronics and elctro-acoustic soundscapes: great modern free jazz!

Wittwer is not only about distorted guitar, he's more about sounds. Not only loud and noise, either, but also loud and noisy.

You might check the Werther/Wittwer disc on Grob (a duo of Wertmüller & Wittwer, and pretty good stuff, I think, recorded live, with drums and guitar/electronics).

ubu

[Guest Chaney]

Peter Brotzmann Interview

March 24, 2000

by Jeff Bagato

Just to start off easy, what was the origin of the Die Like a Dog quartet name?

I was writing a little article about Albert Ayler for a Swiss newspaper, and that was the same time I was hanging around Toshinori Kondo and we were thinking and talking about Ayler. You know, I know Kondo for 20 years at least, and at that point we wanted to set up a new group, another group, cause at that time I was working on one side with William Parker, for long years, and the other one was Hamid Drake, with whom I was playing a lot of duo concerts. So, we just decided to make a new band, and this article ended with the sentence, "He died like a dog." It was in my first opinion it was not meant as a title for the band, it was just because I was using the article for the booklet of the first CD of that quartet. But we realized that people liked the name, so we stayed with it. That was all.

So the intention of that quartet was always to pay tribute to Albert Ayler?

That was the first meaning, yes. We never did it the way that we just played Ayler's tunes or tunes around this area. I think it was much more about the background of it, the meaning of it. So on the first CD we just used a couple of quotations of Ayler's pieces.

There's a strong feeling of Ayler on that.

Yeah. I think after such long years it doesn't make sense to try to play the same way or to use all the tunes. I mean, nobody can have played them better than Ayler himself. Both Kondo and myself felt the same kind of feeling. It's more about the feeling and more about the respect. Because at that time when we started he was quite neglected in the US as well as over here. And I think we gave just a little push to listen to his music again.

When did Die Like a Dog start playing?

What do we have now? 2000. It must have been 94.

You're talking about playing in the spirit of Ayler--do you mean playing with that same freedom?

When I started to play in, let's call it my way or my style, some records came over from the States, the good old ESP records, there were a lot of strange guys, strange music. Then it happened that we, I mean Peter Kowald, the bass player, played a lot of music in Heidelburg in a kind of jazz club. At that time we met a black guy sitting there from time to time. That was the time Ayler was playing in the Army band in Heidelburg. So he didn't mention a name, and even at that time the name wouldn't have meant anything to us, but some years later when the first photographs on the record sleeves came over, we said 'Oh man, weve met that guy!' That was really quite surprising. One thing we had together, at the same time not knowing from each other, trying to play the horn in a way real different way than all the others did. And I think that was the kind of connection between us. And you know, what always was very important for me, the way his playing--its a very American thing. I mean, we in Europe, I don't want to generalize, but we come quite a lot from the intellectual side of doing things, and you always admire what you don't have. And he had one thing, as a lot of other American musicians, or horn players anyway--the way of praying his music, the way of being a preacher, in a way. I admired that very much. It really hit my soul in a way.

You mentioned that you and Ayler were playing the horn in a different way, and I'm wondering what comprised that difference. Do you feel it was a focus on energy or technique or freedom?

You know, at that time, of course everybody was listening to the early Coltranes, and here in Europe we had a lot of chances to listen the Miles Davis band with Coltrane, with Adderley, with all the big names, with Eric Dolphy, for example. We organized a concert here in my hometown with the Charlie Mingus band. At that time Dolphy was in it, so we had a chance to hang out with him the whole night and talk to him--or listen to him--better. So there was a lot of connections to the new stuff. Ornette Coleman came over a lot of times. On the other side, we all came from the hard bop business, more or less. We got kind of tired of that very simple form thing. On the other hand I'm coming from the art business. I studied painting at that time, and I was listening to the first Stockhausen things, and the Fluxus movement. I was involved in these kind of things too. So besides the jazz music, I had some other informations. And for me it was not so difficult to throw away all the very fixed forms of hard bop--the bars and the harmonics and the scales. And you shouldn't forget the political situation in the middle of the 60s, because it was really a movement not only in the arts, in the politics too; we really thought we could change the world to something better and freer. Of course, we didn't succeed, but that was the feeling. So to throw away all kinds of borders, all kinds of prisons you were sitting in. And maybe especially for us Germans, just get rid of what our fathers had done during the second world war. I think that all came together. The German movement in free jazz was the strongest one in Europe, I think. And maybe all those things coming together--the result of that is what we tried to do in those years.

A lot of the liner notes and things on the web have talked about energy and freedom, or an anti-technical aesthetic--are any of these things appropriate to describing your style?

Ehh, yeah. Of course. I mean I always thought that making this kind of music, playing jazz, is a music not only of the spirit but of the body too. The body is very important. For me, I always like to play to a kind of end where you really don't know where you are anymore. Where the physics really have to give up, in a way. In my younger years, at least, that was the case. You know, even doing that, you're getting in a kind of trance. I still like to do it; in all these decades, I changed a bit. I'm getting a little older. Hopefully, I know a little better. I still like to play--sorry about this--to play my ass off. I like it, but of course, since a lot of years I like softer moments, quieter moments too. Most of the critics always see me as a very energetic player, and sometimes I have the feeling most of them don't listen to what I did over all those years. Because if you listen to the trio I had for long years with Han Bennink, the Dutch drummer, we played some balladesque-type stuff, and in my solo playing. But what comes over is all that this is power playing from that guy in Germany. But theres another side; there always was.

I was listening to that From Valley to Valley CD a couple times to prepare for this, and I was trying to focus on the more lyrical moments. The overwhelming impression is of the energy, but then you notice that while there's a lot of fast, intense lines they'll open up into a more lyrical form. Especially on the encore is very beautiful. But the myth is of a very wild player.

(chuckles) I mean, sometimes I have the feeling I can do whatever I want and they write the same nonsense. As I said, its a part of the truth, but its really just a part.

Let me go back to the Die Like a Dog quartet. What's the source material on the later CDs?

All the guys in that band are on the scene for long years. And in all those long years you develop your own style, your own language, your own material, which you can use or you can forget about. When we come together, and that happens twice or 3 times a year for some little tours in Europe or the States, we just go on stage, meet each other, we in a way talk to each other. And the good thing is that from the last time to the new time, its always happening something different. All the different records I've recorded with Toshinori Kondo or with Roy, all the things are completely different. The good thing with the quartet, nobody falls asleep; everybody brings new ideas, new experience. So for us, up till now, hopefully in the future, each concert is really a new experience for us too. That's what I like and I think that's what we all like.

How does that group compose music?

With this quartet, it's all free. It's all improvised. I mean, some of my Dutch friends found the words "instant composing," that I like quite a lot. You know, we know what we're doing. One of us has the very special idea to start with, and we follow or we speak against, or whatever happens. But we all come with our materials, with our language, and we talk to each other. And we find out where it goes.

I have the feeling that you're the guy starting the music most often, and that the others come in following you.

Mmm, could be. A little bit. I think it's changing between the two horns. Especially when I'm playing with Toshinori Kondo. He takes over, or he starts something in one special direction where I follow. But when I'm playing with Roy [Campbell], the guys are waiting for me to start and stop and maybe give some direction.

Yeah, Roy seems to follow you more than Kondo.

We know each other for long years, but we didn't play so much together. I think for us it's very nice to listen to each other and have open ears for each other.

Sometimes Roy will start almost at the same time as you and he'll be playing very complimentary material, so its hard to say there's a clear leader.

I think that's our common past, in a way. I mean, I'm not an American, I'm not a black guy, but I listen to this music since I was 12 or 13. So I hope I learned and realized quite a lot.

Do you think you're a tough leader to follow in that context?

No, I try to be very polite. I think my thing in such a group, especially when I'm working with bigger groups, is to open up and make things possible for the others. I mean, I know what I can play. I like to play, but for me as the leader of that band its very important and very satisfying too, to give the others as much possibilities and freedom as possible.

That quartet is so amazing because its like a free jazz dream team, and I'm wondering how you assembled those players in particular.

Ja. Toshinori Kondo was the first trumpet player in the band, and we're changing who is able to play the gigs.

So Kondo is still part of the group when he can be?

We have a couple of things; Roy is busy in Europe with his own band, so its very good to have the two choices. So in Europe, Kondo will be there. Its nice because there's not really many trumpet players around here in Europe. So how did this thing come together? I don't know. Like I said, I know Kondo a long time from my tours in Japan and Europe, and besides working together we've developed a good friendship. William Parker I know from the good old New York times, we played in different groups. And as I needed and could pay a bass player to come over, it was William.

He's a strong player.

Yes.

Was it necessary to choose such strong players to work with you?

You know, in the last two decades or even longer, the bass was getting too much a kind of virtuosi instrument, and William is playing the bass in a very old fashioned American way, like his teacher Wilbur Ware did.

No matter what Parker does, it swings.

I like that very much. And I think the function of the bass is not really playing a big solo part; the most important function is to keep the band together, and William is perfect doing that. Otherwise, anyway, I like strong players--strong in mind and physically strong too. That's the thing with Hamid Drake, the same thing. Again, I have to thank some friends in Chicago and New York who mentioned Hamid's name about ten years ago. I had a gig in Chicago, and this German guy Willie Gumbert, the piano player couldn't get out of the country (GDR), so I was alone and I was asking "Hey, do you know somebody who would like to join me tonight?" My New York friends had already suggested I ask for Hamid, so I did, and he joined me, and I remember that first duo concert we played two hours and it was working like hell. It was really, from the first moment, a friendship too. So it's unique things to have--being together with really excellent musicians, and on the other side you have friends with you, which is a really extraordinary thing.

Let's go back to your style briefly. You seem to play these dense, compacted, almost impenetrable lines, and I was wondering why you choose that form mostly, especially when things do open up and there can be more lyricism.

What can I say. I don't know where that comes from. I think it's a part of my personality. I always was well known in Europe, and later on in the States: Oh, there's this guy playing very violent, and he doesn't care about any harmonics and details and things. He's playing without anything. Ja, there was a time, and actually I could give a shit about harmonics. I don't need it, but if somebody else needs it, I like to play it. But for me, my way of thinking is from note to note, from special line to special line. You can listen to Shoenberg or Webern or one of the old guys of modern music here in Europe, I have the feeling I learned some from them. Not by studying it, but just by listening. Maybe its my European heritage in a way, but we could say forget about that, I don't need that and we don't need that to make music. We are able to create different methods of music.

You mentioned the line, and that's another impression, that you compose in lines. You'll play a line that's fast and compact and then another one. I was reading that these lines were marked out by the space of a breath, how long a breath would last, more or less. When you go from one line to the next are you playing off each line?

I think it's a kind of dialectic or contrapuntal thinking. If I've done this one and it's very clear, so it's OK, I've said this to jump over to one completely different thing. To make what I did before even clearer. To make some black and white difference in the thing. I think that's a little bit my way of playing nowadays.

When you open up the lines to more lyricism, what's the intention there?

I think a lot of reasons. I like to play that kind of thing; that's a very simple thing. On the other hand, I might come back to what I said before, I want to open up to ourselves and maybe open up the wide range of possibilities of music for the audience too. Maybe its a part of my Romantic heritage, too, I don't know.

In talking about these technical details, I didn't want to overlook the great passion in your playing, too. You had mentioned the spiritual and emotional impact in Ayler's playing.

I think I had some good teachers.

You're self-taught, right?

I'm self-taught. Now teachers, I mean another way. I had good friends and good teachers. One of them, was Don Cherry. Another was Steve Lacy; I learned something from Carla Bley. Anyway, I learned more about music and passion from my American friends. The last time I was playing in Atlanta, I went to a church service in the black community, and I saw this man preaching and I saw this passion I talked about with Ayler. And I saw the people reacting. I can't do the same; I'm not one of these people. My sources and my roots are different, but you can have the same passion. If you do something, and you're really convinced about what you're doing, you have to do it nearly as good and nearly 100%, or as close as you can come. Otherwise, it's not worth opening the case of the horn. I learned that the influences of the people I mentioned--Cecil Taylor showed me this, a lot of other persons, old horn players like when I was young I saw Coleman Hawkins and Ben Webster, other drummers, like Kenny Clarke. I could mention a lot of the old guys; even if it doesn't sound alike, I learned a lot just watching and listening to these men.

That's one thing Ive noticed in the shows Transparent has been bringing, when you just listen to records the impact isn't as great as seeing people in the live setting. You can feel the music a lot more. So I'm really looking forward to seeing you play.

I hope I don't disappoint you! [chuckles]

How do you evaluate your artistic success?

What is success? I have to be very careful. I'm glad. I have to thank all the folks I've had a chance to work with, because I always see this kind of music, jazz musici--ts still jazz to me--I think its the music of a bunch of people, from duo to I don't know what. You have to work together and to find a reasonable result. That makes me happy. I worked hard all the years, from the very beginning until now. I'm still working hard; I'm traveling like an idiot, cause you have to to survive if you're not teaching, if you're not doing something else, if you're just living from playing and traveling. It's hard. It's hard work, but I still love it. Success? Ahh! The only good thing about that kind of success is you get a couple of gigs more easily. Which is good for you, good for the others, and you can even from time to time ask for a little bit more money. [laughs] And what people are writing about me, this is all meant very well, but I think I can look at myself with a lot of distance, so I try to find out where I am with myself. It's nice to see your picture in the paper. I'm always happy when people like the things we're doing, and even I like to discuss with people who don't like these things. I see all this with really some distance.

You've worked with a lot of groups; which was your favorite to work with?

Ahh, that's hard to say. At the moment, it is the quartet. On the other hand we formed the Chicago Tentet, which we performed at the Berlin Jazz Festival, at the Vancouver Festival; we'll have quite a tour of the United States in the summer. And this is a very interesting combination of people, and it's so nice to have ten or sometimes it's twelve people to work with. It's very interesting work. It's a pity it costs a lot of money. That's why the groups are getting smaller in Europe and the States. But sometimes we find chances to do it. I'm looking forward to this summer tour which will keep us together for two, nearly three weeks, so we can develop things. The Tentet tour will be from the middle of June to the beginning of July.

My first exposure to your work was with Last Exit, and I think that may be the case with a lot of people listening to free jazz now, coming from the punk rock scene. Can you compare the energy of that group with Die Like a Dog?

Different. I think the range of dynamics in Die Like a Dog quartet is much bigger. This is natural because it's just natural instruments. We don't need the electricity. The proposition for the Last Exit band was completely different. I must say I enjoyed that time very much. It was a live band. We had good concerts, we had a lot of quite terrible things, but OK, that was the way it went. But for me it was really a pleasure to work with Sonny Sharrock, and the other two of course Shannon is a great drummer. Hopefully well play together again. And I still have my contacts with Bill. Of course, we'll never get back this quartet; we'll have to think about new things. It really was a high energy band. It's a pity it had to finish because of Sonny's death. Otherwise I think we would have continued. If I remember right, the last time we developed more different things.

Head First into the Flames is very different from the earlier records.

Yeah. It's a shame, but that's the way it goes.

I have a 2 year old son and we sometimes make music together and I wondered what it's like for you to make music with your son.

Ahh, yeah. I get this question quite often. We are good comrades. The time he was picking up the guitar, that was Jimi Hendrix's time. He did it--hopefully because he liked to do it--but he did it as a kind of little family revolution against the father. In a way. So I think that's the way it started.

Would you have preferred him to play more jazz?

No, no. I never told him. I mean, we always had the house full of different musicians, so he could talk to Derek Bailey or Han Bennink or whoever came around. So he could get information from them. I never told him what to do. He picked up the guitar, and that was all right. I didn't realize he was serious in the beginning, but it turned out he was very serious. Then I helped him wherever I could with equipment or information, but I never told him "Play this or that." After time he formed his own bands, some of them I like and some of them I didn't. There came a time there was an offer to do a record together from and English guy from an independent label. At that time I was in New York at Bill's studio, and this guy came with the money, and so we did it. I think it worked out quite well. Since that time we play from time to time together. We have a very nice trio with Hamid Drake. They like each other very much. And we play duos. There's a Swiss drummer I'm working with, my son is working with, too. So we see each other. And I see when we go to work together, I seem him much more as a good comrade, a good colleague than my son. Of course, we talk from time to time about family affairs, but that happens.

You don't feel you gave him any particular preparation for musical life?

I think what he learned is that if there are difficulties, don't give up. Just go and work on the things, and there will be a better time.

You're still based in Wuppertal?

Yeah. I'm not here very often. Tomorrow I go to Holland for some days, playing with Keiji Haino.

That should be interesting; he has a reputation much like yours.

Four or five years ago I toured with him for four weeks in Japan. He doesn't speak English--or he says he doesn't, or doesn't want to. But after the second or third week I realized he understands, and at the end he was even talking a little bit. But he's a very shy guy. Very special. I like his work. And the drummer Shoji Hano is another crazy one. He played with Kondo years ago.

[Gary]

Thanks for that Chaney here another one from jazzweekly

A FIRESIDE CHAT WITH PETER BROTZMANN

I spent four years looking for, in fact scouring, record stores (fuck you Tower Records), used record stores (thank you Amoeba) and various shitty internet sites from New York to Boston to Los Angeles and Chicago for a copy of Peter Brotzmann’s Machine Gun. It was only a few months ago that I was able to find a copy of my holy grail (thank you Berkeley). Was it worth the wait? You better fucking believe it. It is, in my humble opinion, the free jazz recording of my time. What luck that Brotzmann is still as prolific as ever and I am able to witness first hand creativity in the making. It is truly an honor for me to present such a man onto our Roadshow babies. Enjoy folks, this one is a keeper. As always, I bring it to you unedited and in his own words.

FRED JUNG: Let’s start from the beginning.

PETER BROTZMANN: Since I was about twelve, thirteen, fourteen, I was running through all kinds of early jazz styles, Dixieland, swing, and things like that in a very amateuristic way, I think. I’m sure Iwas because my target was being a painter and that is why I studied painting. Music always was on my side, in a way, so I found more and more professional people to work with. In all these early years, in the Sixties, it changed from kind of the side thing to my main profession because I longed to know how to play. Steve Lacy and Don Cherry were stopping by my place at that time quite often. They all encouraged me to just go ahead and do it. And in the middle Sixties, that was the time to say good-bye to graphics. I mean, I still do the painting, but the graphics was earning my money for the family. I quit that and went over to music.

FJ: When did you pick up the saxophone?

PETER BROTZMANN: I had one quite early, a very bad, very old one. At that time, I was playing in a semi-professional swing band of my hometown. I had to have a saxophone and I am still quite happy about it.

FJ: Let’s touch on your participation in the Fluxus Movement.

PETER BROTZMANN: That was built up by an American guy. His name was George Maciunas and some American artists out of the late Fifties and early Sixties like Emmett Williams. Maciunas was working for the army at that time in Germany and actually, the whole, real movement started for that reason, it started in Germany in the late Fifties and early Sixties, I think as a very important power in European and American art. It was including all kinds from just normal paintings to prepared music things like Nam June Paik. Nam June Paik is a video artist now days, but he started in my hometown. It spread out all over Western Europe. I was still, at that time, a student at the art school in Wuppertal. I was helping out and preparing and giving Nam June Paik a hand and that was the time. Stockhausen was quite young at the time and he was opening up his electronic studio in Cologne. So there was a lot of exchange, not only on the jazz side, but it was from the other side of art too, which was very important for me. On the other hand, at that time, all the groups, the Coltrane groups, the Miles Davis groups, Horace Silver, Art Blakey, they all toured regularly, not to forget Thelonious Monk, solo and quartet. So as a young man, I had a chance to listen to all that and some of them, meet them personally, which was another great thing for me. I heard Miles Davis around that time with all his different groups that he was working with and coming over to Europe and the first Coltrane Quartet things in Europe and Albert Ayler and of course, not to forget, Eric Dolphy and Minugs. All these big names and that was quite avery, very powerful impression for me. And besides that, you nearly had in every German radio station and we had a lot of big ones, we had some kind of jazz big band there and they were doing quite very, very avant-garde kind of music. So around my area, there was a lot to listen to and seeing a lot of people, which affected me quite a lot.

FJ: Let’s talk about your collaborations with Peter Kowald.

PETER BROTZMANN: I went to study in Wuppertal when I was about eighteen. I was looking around because at that time, most of the bands there played swing, Dixieland. That was the time of Dixieland revival in Western Europe. So I was looking for somebody else and so somebody told me about this very young guy trying to play the bass and that was Peter Kowald. So we started with various drummers in trios and quartets sometimes because being influenced by Ornettte and Mingus and all the guys I mentioned before, we tried to find out what would be our kind of thing. We worked the first ten years I would say of both our careers. We worked quite intense together and then, of course, Germany is not that big and at that time, it was just the western part of it and Cologne was very near and all these other guys like Gunter Hampel, Alex Schlippenbach, just to mention these two, were living and working with their groups, so we had some exchange going on and that was the reason to build up the first Global Unity Orchestra.

FJ: Who made up the Global Unity Orchestra?

PETER BROTZMANN: It partly my trio at that time with Peter Kowald and Sven-Ake Johansson, the Swedish drummer who lived in Wuppertal and then the other hand was Alex Schlippenbach with Schoof and all the guys you find on the first FMP Global Unity records.

FJ: Let’s talk about the FMP label.

PETER BROTZMANN: FMP was founded in the late Sixties, ’69, I think. It was a kind of corporation of musicians like Peter Kowald and myself and a little later on Schlippenbach and Schoof. We founded it because there was no record company, for example, ESP was in New York, which was interested in this kind of music. We felt there was an audience, so we decided to make a company ourselves. It has had, not in a money way, but in the ideologic and artistic way, I would say it has been successful. It is not really a musician’s corporation anymore because the whole thing was getting too big and we couldn’t control it and so we handed the business side over

FJ: What is the extent of your involvement with the label now?

PETER BROTZMANN: Not as in the very early years where we could say that this was our record label. Now, it just was getting too big and in a way, too successful and we included more and more musicians from the States, from Japan, and from everywhere in Europe. So we had to give a part of it over to the man who was organizing it, but I still can decide what I want to do with my kind of thing. It still belongs to me and the same for all the other musicians.

FJ: And you have had a long association with Han Bennink.

PETER BROTZMANN: Yeah, and I had always good connections via my art, good connections to Holland and I met through a friend, I met Han Bennink and Willem Breuker and we were setting up a trio in the middle Sixties. I met the Belgium guys like Fred Van Hove and so we decided to build up that trio, which we were working with for maybe fifteen years and then I was working as a duo with Bennink. So we spent quite some time together and at the same time, our connections or especially my connections with musicians from the United States like I have said that Don Cherry was the main important man for me, but others like Steve Lacy. We toured with Carla. I learned to know Mr. Andrew Cyrille, while he was working with Cecil at that time in Paris and so I met Cecil for the first time and Jimmy Lyons, all kind of guys, because I was always fond of drummers anyway. This exchange, especially the exchange with my American friends was always very important.

FJ: Both Hamid Drake and William Parker are part of your Die Like a Dog Quartet. Interesting name.

PETER BROTZMANN: People, of course, are asking why this name. Some music paper asked me about six, seven years ago, to write alittle article about Albert Ayler and so I did and I ended it with “die like a dog.” Some promoter saw that article and he put on “Die Like a Dog” on the poster and since that time, people areusing it. We just finished a couple of things in Europe and the East Coast and Mid-West. I had to change between two trumpet players. At times, it is Roy Campbell and sometimes it is Toshinori Kondo, who plays in Japan still and is busy with a lot of things and so sometimes, he can’t make it and I know Roy from my very early visit to New York. We played together and there is no first or second. They both play with the Quartet.

FJ: Let’s touch on a landmark album of yours, Machine Gun.

PETER BROTZMANN: That of course was a wild time in Europe especially. There was the student’s revolt and so on and for us as musicians, we couldn’t stand outside of that. We were quite involved and it affected the way the music went too. It was really a time for getting rid of old-fashioned, traditional jazz styles and start from a new point. Machine Gun was the name that Don Cherry gave me as a nickname when he heard me the first time. That is why the group was called like that.

FJ: And of course, Nipples, which has just been re-released by Atavistic as part of John Corbett’s Unheard Music Series.

PETER BROTZMANN: Yeah, that was ’69. That was one year after Machine Gun and that was the time where all, especially the west European guys like, mostly the English and the Dutch and the Germans came together for the first time and worked out things together. German at that time was quite a good scene for going to the radio stations and getting some gigs there. There was a growing interest in this kind of music and Manfred Eicher, now the producer of ECM, he was working at that time for another small contemporary music label called Jazz By Post and he had enough influence to organize for us to make a record on that label. So that is the short story of that.

FJ: Lastly, you have a new album on Okka Disk, Stone/Water with your Chicago Tentet.

PETER BROTZMANN: Yeah, we recorded it two years ago when we recorded the triple album andI think it was kind of a successful thing. That was a recording at the Victoriaville festival last year. Hopefully, now we have this tour coming up in the States and I think next year we are able to work a couple of festivals in Europe. I think everybody is keen on continuing to work with the orchestra. I try my best and I have good comrades to work on it. Nearly everybody in the band is thinking in a very collective way about the orchestra, which makes work a lot easier and interesting.

FJ: Were you able to record any portion of the American tour?

PETER BROTZMANN: No, there was no chance to record the New York one, but we will record some of the concerts we are doing now and in the next two weeks and we go into the studio after we are through here in Chicago and play the last and finally concert on the fifth of July here, which will be recorded too as far as I know.

FJ: Why did you choose to form another large ensemble at this point in your career?

PETER BROTZMANN: It goes back to the Machine Gun group. I always like to find out what kind of possibilities you have with an eight piece band or even more. I was working in bands in Germany for some radio station with a twenty piece band and things like that. Through all of this, I am busy with the music. I have always had bands from eight to ten or twelve piece, but you know, Fred, it is a money problem. It is so difficult to find money. If I want to go on the road with my friends, I would like to be able to pay them some decent money. It is very rare these days that you can travel around, especially in this country, travel around with some people and make a little money.

FJ: Why did you choose musicians in Chicago, rather than New York?

PETER BROTZMANN: I know a lot of guys in New York and I have worked with really a lot of New York guys. I have worked with William Parker for twenty years. What is fascinating here in Chicago and I think is opposite to New York, I think New York educates you to be a very selfish person and here in Chicago, I found the situation is that everybody is working together, trying to build up something. I find they are all great musicians. The situation here in Chicago, together withOkka Disk, together with John Corbett and his connections, there are a bunch ofreally good musicians. I found that very fascinating.

FJ: Should people be paying more attention to what is going on in Chicago?

PETER BROTZMANN: I think Europe already does. I think if you talk to music, jazz fans in Europe, at the moment, the first place would be Chicago. I’m quite sure that Chicago will get more and more attention here in the States. It does already in Canada. At the moment, it is really incredible. You can go every night somewhere and some place and listen to some mostly reasonable music and you will see every night a good audience around here. It is a little bit different from New York. I am very happy to say that we have a chance to play at the Tonic in New York again. I like that place. I think that place is able to change the scene and make it a little bit more open and efficient too. It is always bad when you have the kind of monopolistic situation that the Knitting Factory always was. If you talk to musicians, nearly none of us like the Knitting Factory. The situation now is a little bit better in New York with the Tonic and it is a very nice place and good people. I think everybody likes to play there.

FJ: How is the European improvisational scene?

PETER BROTZMANN: I actually am more informed about the things happening here these days than I am informed of what is going on in Europe. It sounds funny, but you know, Fred, in Europe, there is still some good work coming out and still happening. Even with all the financial problems, I think they will survive. If you look back at my last years, I am mostly working with American musicians and maybe once in a while with some Japanese guys, but you won’t find any German guys in my bands anymore. I don’t know why that is, but it is very simple, I have yet to find any German musicians that I want to work with. I think, at the moment, it seems to be a lot of younger guys and girls, they go to the electronics. I think that is quite in fashion at the moment. I don’t know how long that will go on, but one thing I have to say about the German situation is that I miss young people, young players coming out in Germany. I don’t know so much about the situation in France or in Scandinavia. I think the situation in Scandinavia is much better. But especially in Germany, I have the feeling there is nothing coming out and that is too bad. Wherever I go here, I find a couple of young guys asking questions and are players themselves and being very knowledgeable with what’s going on here and in Europe. I think at the moment, I find the American situation is better. I am very optimistic.

FJ: I know that you have somewhat of an introverted personality. Yet, traditionalists tend to see your music as chaotic.

PETER BROTZMANN: Yeah, that is the big misunderstanding that has been happening since the beginning. The word free jazz was mostly used in Europe by European writers and journalists and was of course the cause of a lot of misunderstanding. Just like with Jelly Roll Morton and Duke Ellington, you have to have a kind of form to express what you want to give over to the people. You have to be organized in yourself and you have to know what you are doing. A human being is a strange thing. Of course, there are a lot of chaotic things happening in your lives and you will find these things in music too, but you use it as one sort of music, one form to get to some other point. I think it doesn’t matter if it is a duo music or twelve piece band, it has to be organized. The way of organization will look different, but it is a lot of organization necessary to bring that what you feel or what you want to tell the people, to bring that over to them.

FJ: What do you wish to tell your audience?

PETER BROTZMANN: Now that is a question we should sit with maybe a couple bottles of wine and talk about (laughing).

FJ: That’s a date.

PETER BROTZMANN: To make it short, I have just one life and just in the last few years, I saw so much is going on in this world and you have to experience as a human being with you family, with your kids, with your wife, with your friends. All that goes into the music too. All the anger, all of what you read in the papers, all that you watch on TV, seeing what is going on in the world, you have to find some way to work on that and for me, the music is a good thing to tell people what I feel and what I think about life. For twenty years, I have been living alone, but I raised up two kids and I still have very good connections with my wife. Without my wife, I wouldn’t have been able to develop what I developed in those early years. There was no money. There was nothing. There was less work. Family is important and I never will forget that. My house was always open for every musician passing by. This kind of thing builds up a certain view of your life and the way you play. So all these little things are very important. I try to tell that to the people and bring that over to them.

[John B]

Great interviews! Thank you both for posting those.