Peter Brötzmann (1941 - 2023)

Photo by Peter Gannushkin

By Martin Schray

There are many anecdotes from Peter Brötzmann’s life. How groundbreaking he was is shown by an event that’s hardly imaginable from today’s perspective. On a Friday afternoon in 1967, seven gentlemen were sitting around a table in a TV studio of the WDR (Germany's largest public broadcasting corporation) discussing free jazz. The witness for the prosecution was Klaus Doldinger (the saxophonist who later composed the film music for “The Boat“) with his band, the defendant was Brötzmann, one of the apologists of this new thing. Both protagonists - Brötzmann played with Peter Kowald on bass and Aldo Romano on drums - had to answer to the panel of critics. At one point Brötzmann was asked if he could play jazz standards. He could, Brötzmann said, but he didn’t want to. His statement was incredibly cool and left the others almost speechless. This revolutionary attitude shaped his entire musical life; he simply didn’t care what others think.

This episode also showed the enigmatic aura he was always surrounded with, a dark, sullen iridescence that is difficult to put into words. On the one hand, his charismatic appearance made him an icon during his lifetime. On the other hand, Brötzmann met such veneration with skeptical, almost contemptuous equanimity. At a gig in Pforzheim, when the organizer was announcing him and reminded him of the blissful times in the jazz club there in the 1960s, he simply snapped, “Oh, why don’t you just stop it!“ and began to play.

A main reason for the development of his musical style might have been the fact that he was an autodidact. At 16, he played the clarinet in a Dixieland band in his hometown of Remscheid. He switched to the tenor saxophone when the group began to explore swing and bebop later on. In 1959 he moved to nearby Wuppertal to study painting and commercial art. There he met Fluxus artist Nam June Paik, who was highly influential for his artistic philosophy. “I realized that in jazz, too, we had to break through the well-rehearsed conventions and clichés if we wanted to proceed“, he told journalist Bert Noglik in an interview. In Wuppertal he met the bassist Peter Kowald, a soul mate as far as music was concerned. Together with him and with drummer Sven-Åke Johansson he formed his first trio, which recorded For Adolphe Sax (BRÖ, 1967), a big bang for freely improvised music in what was then West Germany. There was neither a tonal center nor any periodic rhythm, compositional approaches were dispensed with. A shock for many listeners to this day.

Surprisingly, however, there was a certain success, which resulted in invitations to the Jazzfest in Frankfurt, for example. Yet, there was also an enormous uproar, although the trio was only allowed to play for 15 minutes. The good thing was that the gig led to a relationship with German concert impresario Fritz Rau, who supported the Machine Gun Octet in 1968, whose recording at the Lila Eule in Bremen has become one of the most important free jazz albums of all time. Brötzmann’s trio with drummer Han Bennink and pianist Fred Van Hove emerged from that octet, a first super group of European free jazz (although Brötzmann never liked that term). The band lasted until 1975 (as to recordings).

The following years saw a meandering Brötzmann, with no steady band until he decided to try something new again: He crossed another border and turned to rock. Last Exit, a band consisting of him, Sonny Sharrock (guitar), Bill Laswell (bass) and Ronald Shannon Jackson), was a fascinating bastard of improvised music and free rock, unheard at their time. What was more, he eventually gained the respect of the U.S. scene, which had long regarded the European free jazz musicians with suspicion. In the 1990s, he played frequently with what was arguably the world’s best rhythm section at that time: William Parker (bass) and Hamid Drake (drums). Augmented by Brötzmann’s friend Toshinori Kondo on trumpet, Die Like A Dog was born, a quartet echoing the ideas of Albert Ayler’s music.

Finally (and with the help of Ken Vandermark), Brötzmann experienced the ultimate push to become the great elder statesman of free jazz when he docked on the Chicago scene - a match made in heaven. His European-American tentet (which was sometimes even expanded) lasted almost 15 years. It was an incredible achievement to keep a large formation like this together for such a long time. He ended it almost out of the blue. In a letter he wrote: “In 2011 with the weekends in London and Wuppertal we have reached the peak of what is possible in improvisation and communication with an immense input from all of us. For my taste it is better to stop on the peak and look around than gliding down in the mediocre fields of 'nothing more to say' bands.“ Typical Brötzmann.

In terms of health, his last years were often a rollercoaster ride. He suffered from what is sometimes called “glassblower’s disease“. The increased pressure on the lungs had damaged the respiratory tract in the long run and especially the exhalation became difficult. It was a miracle that Brötzmann was still able to play for so long, even if one could see his efforts.

It’s almost impossible to give a limited selection of recommendations from over 600 albums Peter Brötzmann has played on. The aforementioned For Adolphe Sax is certainly a milestone (but perhaps music-wise not among his best recordings). But Machine Gun (BRÖ, 1968), his octet release, has changed European music and is a must have. Then there’s his sextet/quartet album Nipples (Calig, 1969) with Buschi Niebergall (bass), Han Bennink (drums) and Fred van Hove plus Evan Parker (sax) and Derek Bailey (guitar), another early gem of European free jazz. His trio with Bennink and Van Hove is legendary and all the releases are just outstanding, if I had to pick one it would be their farewell album Tschüss (FMP, 1975). Possibly Brötzmann’s favourite formation was the sax-drum duo. A classic is Schwarzwaldfahrt (FMP, 1977) with Han Bennink, when they played out in the open and included nature sounds and a whole range of instruments for their music. Another one is The Dried Rat-Dog (Okka Disk, 1995) with Hamid Drake, maybe their answer to John Coltrane’s and Rashied Ali’s Interstellar Space. From his recordings with large formations Alarm (FMP, 1983), an international nonet with explosive power, is worthwhile. The best album of the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet might be 3 Nights in Oslo (Smalltown Superjazz, 2010) but all the twelve albums they recorded are sheer killers. Another tentet recording, The März Combo (FMP, 1992), is a personal favorite. It was the band he assembled to celebrate his 50th birthday. Although he wasn’t really satisfied with the result later on, it’s a great album of incredible power. The Die Like A Dog quartet is the living proof that free jazz can swing. They recorded seven albums, you can’t go wrong with their debut Fragments Of Music, Life And Times Of Albert Ayler (FMP, 1994). Last Exit’s first self-titled album (Enemy, 1986) is a great access for listeners who are not familiar with free jazz. Finally, Peter Brötzmann also set standards as to playing solo. His Münster Bern (Tubus Records, 2015) release sums up a lot of his music, it’s a late magnum opus.

An excerpt from an interview with the German journalist Karl Lippegaus possibly puts Peter Brötzmann’s credo in a nutshell: “The bands that I put together or that come about in this way don't just exist because they are all such great musicians, but because we have something to do with each other, because we correspond in this or that way. (...) It’s about life, about survival, that sounds terribly pathetic now, but I really mean it, I’m dead serious. It’s also not something you can do once in a while at some stage of your life - whether it lasts four weeks or four years. It’s a lifelong journey to figure out: how far can you go, where can you go, where are you at this moment.“

There’s no musician I’ve seen live as often as Peter Brötzmann, of no musician I own so many albums. His music changed my way of listening. The fact that he passed away means that something’s definitely missing in this world, it’s a bit as if Easter had gone for good. However, his music is eternal and it will comfort us. Today and forever.

Watch Peter Brötzmann play solo in Warsaw in 2017: