Reviews |
#2:
Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet, Stone/Water (OkkaDisk).
On this live recording, German free jazz sax legend Brötzmann earns a
key to the Windy City by heading up a brilliant and boisterous band
dominated by Chicagoans: reed man [Ken] Vandermark, trombonist Jeb
Bishop, cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and drummers Hamid Drake and Michael
Zerang. Boasting a single extended piece, Stone/Water
is by turns hair-raising, tuneful and, in continually changing focus
and texture, crafty.
—
Lloyd Sachs, “10 best of the year: Chicago’s jazz
greats”,
Chicago Sun-Times, January 5, 2001
When
Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet played the 1999 Victoriaville
Festival, they had recorded their opus three-CD set on OkkaDisk and
played live only on a few occasions. When they hit the stage, they
were hot off an appearance at the Empty Bottle Festival in Chicago,
and were rested and primed. This CD features the extended composition
Brötzmann had prepared, which constituted the second set of their
performance. Through the piece, the leader blocks and masses the
dense horns, swirling strings, and cascading drums and then opens the
ensemble up for extended solos by each of the players. As good as the
3-CD set is, this version of the Tentet benefits from the added drive
of William Parker’s bass and Toshinori Kondo’s trumpet
flurries and slashing shards of electronics. With three horn players
like Brötzmann, Gustafsson, and Vandermark, what could have easily
become just a molten blow-out instead transforms into a captivating
pastiche of extended explorations. And the countering polyrhythmic
currents of Zerang and Drake never let the energy and momentum
flag. Brötzmann revels in the opportunity to break the ensemble
into smaller subsets that arc off and then flow back into the massed
grouping. The piece starts out with a blistering blast, and then
jumps into an eddying vortex. This slowly opens up with Kondo’s
altered and muted trumpet crashing off of Bishop’s muted
trombone and the shifting wall of arco strings until the horns come
crashing in again, sketching out the overall structure. Blustering
gusts of raging horns burst in and then fade back for groupings that
let each of the players stretch out. When the piece builds to a head
and then breaks for a solo foray by Kondo, it is as if a storm has
broken. The trumpet player lays out skirling flows of notes and then
shreds and flays them with electronic manipulations, mounting tension
again that is picked up by the reeds. It is intriguing in this
context to hear the athletic, slapping microtones and details of
Gustafsson’s playing contrasted with the barreling,
jazz-inflected excursions of Vandermark and the leader’s searing
fusillades. Whrn the piece finally comes back around at the end to
Brötzmann wailing over the forceful drive of the ensemble, it brings
the journey to dazzling climax. When his solo breaks, Parker’s
hushed arco ostinatos bring the entire piece to a bracing conclusion.
This focused set is ample proof that Brötzmann has found a compelling
set of musicians with which to continue to expand his musical vision.
Kudos go to OkkaDisk for continuing to document this important
ensemble.
— Michael Rosenstein, Cadence Vol. 27 #1 (December 2000)
With
any sizeable Brötzmann group, the temptation is always there to
compare it to his classic Machine Gun unit. This new tentet
doesn’t match up to the unbridled ferocity of that earlier
grouping, but then what has? Perhaps the greatest sea change since
the heavy-drinking glory days of 1968 is that ecstatic playing is now
as much an idiom as an instinctive response. For all its supposed
iconoclastic freedom, this idiom now has its own traditions, its own
heroes, and its own stock cliches. Youthful rage, frustration and joy
have subsided, to be replaced by an awareness that ecstatic playing is
one option among many, albeit one that requires more art and
dedication than any other in the history of jazz.
In any
era, though, this would be a startling group [...]. All these
musicians are capable of investing energy and truth into an idiom
which, in lesser hands, is in danger of becoming as empty as the
ciphers of trad or swing. This 1999 concert date presumably proceeds
in a conduction style through a series of smaller sectional pairings.
Perhaps in deference to the acoustics of the concert hall, individual
virtuosic showcases are preferred to the full power splat of the whole
group, which is saved here till the very end. Still, there are many
highlights, including Kondo’s electronically splattered trumpet,
and a wonderful trombone solo from Bishop set against a galloping
bassline, and Drake’s ever swinging drums.
—
Alan Cummings, The Wire, August 2000
Peter
Brötzmann earned lasting notoriety with Machine Gun, his
breakthrough recording. The infamous 1968 session unleashed a sonic
onslaught by an octet of elite European free improvisers. Thirty-one
years later, Brötzmann brought his Chicago Tentet (including a few
ringers) to Victoriaville for this short, but cathartic performance.
Stone/Water crosses national and generational lines, aligning
the fearsome saxophonist with younger, sympathetic players like
Ken Vandermark, Mats Gustafsson and Jeb Bishop. Everyone gets to
play, as Brötzmann arranges a series of encounters featuring small
subgroups, such as string players or brass players. Each episode
in this continuous performance builds to a febrile climax fueled
by the squalling, shrieking horn section.
Some of
the most interesting permutations involve trumpeter Toshinori Kondo,
cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm and/or percussionist Hamid Drake. Given
three crazed reed players and no liner notes, it can be difficult to
sort out who else participates in the mayhem at any given moment. The
final episode gathers speed over a turbulent, locomotive rhythm, as
the frenzied voices of the players build to a din, seemingly playing
until the final release leaves them exhausted. My only disappointment
with Stone/Water is that I didn’t hear more soloing by
Brötzmann himself.
— Jon Andrews, Down Beat, December 2000
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