Brötzmann Rarities (MP3)

[ There are 11 pretty wild MP3s hidden in this post. ]

My first encounter with free jazz giant Peter Brötzmann happened more than 20 years ago, at the 1985 Total Music Meeting in Berlin. At the time I was a rather naive teenager visiting (West) Berlin, and I saw that Wolfgang Dauner was playing at the Quartier Latin. I didn't know what to make of the name "Total Music Meeting" and had never heard of any of the other musicians who were playing that night, but I really liked Dauner, so I decided to go and let myself be surprised. And surprised I was. I had never really listened to free jazz before, so it was quite an experience to see Phil Minton, Peter Brötzmann, and Hugh Davies going berserk on stage, with lots of energy and no discernible rules or structure. At least that was the impression it made on me at the time.

I saw a couple more Peter Brötzmann concerts later, with more advance warning and probably less naivete, and at some point I discovered that his son Caspar Brötzmann made some amazingly heavy, slow and dark music with his band Massaker. I certainly preferred Caspar's music over free jazz, but one day I heard a track on the radio which was a duo of the two Brötzmanns, and it blew my mind. I should have immediately tracked down the album at the time, but for unknown reasons I didn't, and I eventually forgot about the whole thing until recently.

So then a couple of weeks ago, again for unknown reasons, I suddenly wanted to have this album, and didn't have any information about it. Fortunately we now have the Internet, Google, and Soulseek to track down rare out-of-print albums. After a few false leads (some people mistakenly believe that it is called "The Vodka King") I eventually found it, and I offer you the whole album "Last Home" here in MP3 form: Die, Saurier, Die | Talk To The Canoe Driver | Last Home | Little Man In The Boat | Doozandazzy | Yazzihamper | Witch Hazel In The Dark Afternoon | Fette Biester | Tantarabobs. Recorded 1990 in NYC, it was released by the (unfortunately now defunct) Pathological Records label.

Along the way I found another amazing and rare recording of Peter Brötzmann, Fred van Hove, and Han Bennink, a 7" vinyl release on FMP from 1973. It contains their (instrumental) version of the communist anthem Einheitsfrontlied (United Front Song) by Hanns Eisler and Bertolt Brecht (English lyrics over here). Listen to the MP3s at your own risk: Side 1 | Side 2. If you like this stuff, you'll love THE essential European free jazz album of all times, Machine Gun (fortunately still in print), recorded in 1968 by the Peter Brötzmann Octet. It is the closest that music has ever come to open warfare.

By the way, here is a rather interesting interview from 2003 with father and son Brötzmann, just before they played a show in France. They explain why Last Exit and Massaker are gone for good, and that there are too many CDs out there. And some other stuff, but you'll have to read for yourself.

Comments

[Jonathan Wall]

I think you meant http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/LG/Brotzmann/Caspar_and_Peter_Broetzmann_-_09_-_Tantarabobs.mp3 for the last link.

[Lukas]

Yes, indeed, that was what I meant. Thanks for the correction, I fixed the link.

[Jonathan Wall]

Ha-ha, sorry for trying to post that comment like a million times. I forgot that they had to be approved to show up.

[Brian Turner]

It's worth noting that Atavistic has been pretty 'heroic' (as Dave Emory would say) in making the Brotzmann back catalog available. About 180 degrees opposite of the assault of Machine Gun, the recordings reissued last year he did with Han Bennink in the woods, Schwarzwaldfahrt, with sticks, water, etc. might be one of my favorite releases of all related to him. The Chicago Tentet stuff (especially the 3CD thing on Okka) completely kills too. I think my first experience was seeing him on video play at the old Knit with William Parker (and I want to say Graves or Murray), on one of these Chemical Imabalance zine comps, and it totally blew my mind and still does. I will have to go dig that up somewhere.

[Ford MF]

Super! That made my day! No matter how many Brotzmann records you already have, it's nice to discover there's always one more hiding out in the aether.

[Greenpoint]

For those who remember, Vodka King was the name of the liquor store on Manhattan Ave just off of Greenpoint Avenue. I remember they sold a potato vodka from New Jersey that was allegedly 180 proof.

[Dave Makin]

Just over a year later (it's now March 08), the links to this monster album are still up! Which is great.
Thank you very much for this - greatly appreciated.
What an album!!!

[Thelema]

This site is a reason to love the internet. Thanx a lot!!! I saw the Brötzmanns with Hamid Drake in 1998 and it was one of my all-time favourite concerts.

[André]

My favourite is "low life".