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  • Live at Nefertiti

    AYLCD-004

    Artist: Peter Brötzmann

    Label: Ayler Records

    Recorded in concert at Nefertiti Jazzclub, Gothenburg, Sweden, March 13, 1999 - Peter Brötzmann: tenor sax, tarogato, clarinet - Peter Friis Nielsen: electric bass - Peeter Uuskyla: drums

  • Fuck De Boere

    ALP211

    Artist: Peter Brotzmann

    Label: Atavistic

    German saxophonist Peter Brotzmann has been a central player in the European free jazz scene since the mid-1960s. This new CD consists of two previously unreleased concerts recorded at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival for radio broadcast in 1968 and 1970.

    The first piece is a previously unheard alternate version of his seminal, post-Ayler, free jazz piece, "Machine Gun," recorded in Germany in March 1968, three months before its previous available FMP recording. In the midst of the late-1960s Vietnam war student protest era, this seventeen minute long piece for four saxes, piano, two basses and two drums seemed like a political statement as much as a sonic assault. The playing has strong force, but it's not all screaming horns—there is also some subtlety, too, as the horns drop out for a duet of bowed basses, or a drum, piano or sax solo.

    Then comes the amazing forty-minute long title piece—dedicated to South African exile Johnny Dyani. (When the late bassist told stories about the evils of the South African De Boere apartheid government, he ended with "Fuck De Boere." Hence the title.) As on "Machine Gun," the players on this piece project strong energy, endurance and power, rising in emotion as the sound builds to a shout. This piece has a greater variety of sounds than "Machine Gun" does—partly due to the inclusion of avant guitarist Derek Bailey who can make a wide array of sounds, and the addition of a trombone.

    Listening to these pieces thirty years later let me...