limited edition: copy n.537
peter brötzmann a-clarinet, tarogato, alto & tenor saxophones
han bennink drums

the 2nd release on brö since the label's 2003 revival presents a continuation of one of the great duos in free music history, peter brotzmann & han bennink. brötzmann organized a series of concerts with bennink in early 2004 for the ultimate purpose of capturing these moments, their first duo music on record since 1980's atsugi concert. the particular chemistry & poetry b/t these two old friends is still furiously alive; but the accumulation of experience & years by both artists brings new areas of consideration. this is brötzmann /bennink music formulated at once more carefully & more freely; every gesture here sounds earned, decisive, vital.

as with brö 3, the record itself is pressed on real audiophile 180 gram vinyl by RTI. artwork by both brötzmann & bennink, jackets silk-screened by siwa records, oregon, u.s.a., in a numbered edition of 999. there is a shipping/handling charge for brö products on all domestic & foreign orders. orders w/in the u.s.: first class shipping rates will depend on your zip code, please include it when ordering. media rate is a flat rate of $3.50. insurance is optional & costs an additional $1.30. we will not "guarantee" brös sent w/o insurance. canadian & overseas orders, we will quote you a shipping price based on your preferred shipping method.

"The presence of the LP isn’t always just in the sound. I'd been looking at a first pressing of Albert Ayler's Spiritual Unity, with its silk-screened cover, when this 180 gram LP arrived, complete with hand silk-screened covers of artwork by the musicians. It seemed to sing across time to the Ayler record. It's the first recording of the Brötzmann/ Bennink partnership since 1980, a 2004 performance at the Loft in Cologne that has a consistent conversational intimacy between these two senior masters of free jazz, European chapter. Brötzmann plays clarinet on half of the six tracks, with a warm vocal sonority that leaps out of the grooves, while Bennink matches and feeds his impassioned discourse. The palpable humanity of the music is matched by the presence of the artifact. Limited to an edition of 999, the LP is available through the Eremite web-site." --Stuart Broomer, coda

"I surely wasn¹t the only one whose jaw hit the floor at the news that German free-jazz wildman Peter Brötzmann was one of Bill Clinton¹s favourite saxophonists. It¹s hard to square the image of Clinton jamming on the White House lawn with all of the sweaty chops of Kenny G with the kind of immolating force, artless profundity and explosive, mile-wide tone that Brötzmann regularly brings to the table. Early on, Brötzmann took the elastic lessons in form of titanic thinkers like John Coltrane and contemporaries like Albert Ayler way out into whole new vectors of now while cutting a series of revered sides with unequivocal titles like Machine Gun, Nipples and Balls. Unlike most of his generation, his music is as bloodied and unbowed as it was back in the 1960s, so I guess we can forgive him the little bit of tongue-in-cheek slack he cuts himself in the title. Still Quite Popular Š is the second release on Brötzmann¹s recently re-activated Brö label and comes on heavy-duty vinyl in a beautiful, individually silk-screened sleeve. Both sides see him burning lucid iron arcs of clarinet, saxophone and tarogato deep into the air, while drummer and long-term shadow Han Bennink sounds like a locomotive driven straight through the European night." --David Keenan, sunday herald online

"first lp these two giants of the world free jazz community have cut together since '81 or so, & the combination of reed explosion & drum explansion is as monumental as ever. great silk-screened art collab by the two as well. just brilliant all around." --coley & moore, arthur

side 'A'
1. clarinet/drums
2. tarogato/drums
3. clarinet/drums

side 'B'
1. clarinet/drums
2. alto/drums
3. tenor/drums

recorded 4 & 5 february, 2004, at the loft, köln

Review by Jay Collins
29 August 2005

The pleasure and success of an improvised music meeting often rests with the combination of talents, a trickier proposition than it seems on paper. The pairing of Peter Brötzmann and Han Bennink, two of European free music’s visionaries, pretty much guarantees success, perhaps referenced in the lighthearted title of the fourth release on Brötzmann’s revived vinyl-only label, Brö: Still Quite Popular After All Those Years.

This duo initially hooked up on wax in 1968 for several of Brötzmann’s larger group conceptions (i.e. Fuck de Boere and the blistering Machine Gun), often in the company of other leading Europeans. Arguably their most successful exploits were in the company of Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove, the pinnacle of which was the recently reissued 1973 classic, FMP 130. After Van Hove left for other pursuits, Brötzmann and Bennink went at it as a duo, for a union that recorded 1977’s excellent Ein Halber Hund Kann Nicht Pinkeln and Schwarzwaldfahrt records, as well as their last endeavor, 1980’s Atsugi Concert. Back then, Bennink matched Brötzmann’s reed arsenal with his everything-including-the-kitchen-sink choice of instruments that included reeds, stringed instruments, and even, “sand, land, water and air” (no joke).

As for this Free Kings reunion, the duo sticks to shorter chunks of music focusing on using Brötzmann’s reeds and Bennink’s textures to mark delineations between “compositions” that make this an easily consumable free exercise in the spirit of FMP 130. A 2004 meeting at a Köln loft was the focal point of the performances, a 40-minute session that splatters color, intertwines attuned thoughts, and spews a controlled intensity commensurate with their years of service to the cause.

Bennink commences the show (a.k.a. side one) on “No. 1” with flecked drum tickles before Brötzmann’s gauzy alto clarinet enters for a lively exchange. After a sparkling conclusion, Bennink’s splinters set the tone for Brötzmann’s emotive tarogato on “No. 2”. Introspective low-toned clarinet murmurs infuse “No. 3”—a piece based on “Master of a Small House” from Tales Out of Time—as Bennink’s idiosyncratic percussions easily remind one of why he is such a pillar of this music.

Side two also begins in a ruminative fashion, with haunting melodic thoughts that suggest a number of Brötzmann-curated instant compositions of yore. Never mind the concerns that team Brötzmann-Bennink have gone soft, as the final two cuts create a lovely ruckus. Brötzmann’s spitfire alto meets Bennink’s Big Beats on “No. 5” and further, these partners take it home on “No. 6”, featuring Brötzmann’s full-throated tenor waxing anthemic under the rush of Bennink’s potent pitter-patter.

Listening to this LP, one has to wonder whether these champions of non-formulaic music have become, well, formulaic. If that is so, what a paradigm it is! Full of audacity and charm, these masters show that while they might not wrestle as much as they did decades before, their art now has a refined sense of purpose, while maintaining the vigor, unpredictability, and fun after all these years. Incidentally, the glorious LP sound from this 180-gram platter is fantastic.