Peter Brötzmann

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German jazz musician (1941–2023)

title: "Peter Brötzmann" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["1941-births", "2023-deaths", "21st-century-german-male-musicians", "21st-century-german-saxophonists", "atavistic-records-artists", "avant-garde-jazz-musicians", "cimp-artists", "fmp/free-music-production-artists", "german-jazz-saxophonists", "german-male-jazz-musicians", "globe-unity-orchestra-members", "icp-orchestra-members", "last-exit-(free-jazz-band)-members", "german-male-saxophonists", "okka-disk-artists", "people-from-remscheid", "musicians-from-the-rhine-province", "best-composer-european-film-award-winners"] description: "German jazz musician (1941–2023)" topic_path: "arts" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brötzmann" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary German jazz musician (1941–2023) ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox musical artist"]

FieldValue
namePeter Brötzmann
imagePeter Broetzmann 05N2754.jpg
captionBrötzmann playing in 2010
backgroundnon_vocal_instrumentalist
birth_date
birth_placeRemscheid, Germany
death_date
death_placeWuppertal, Germany
genreEuropean free jazz, avant-garde jazz, free improvisation
occupationMusician
instrumentSaxophone, clarinet, tárogató
years_active1967–2023
past_member_ofGlobe Unity Orchestra, Peter Kowald, Cecil Taylor, Last Exit, Derek Bailey, William Parker, Die Like a Dog Quartet, Sven-Åke Johansson, Evan Parker, Buschi Niebergall, Fred Van Hove, Han Bennink, Willem Breuker, Paal Nilssen-Love, John Zorn
::

| name = Peter Brötzmann | image = Peter Broetzmann 05N2754.jpg | caption = Brötzmann playing in 2010 | background = non_vocal_instrumentalist | birth_date = | birth_place = Remscheid, Germany | death_date = | death_place = Wuppertal, Germany | genre = European free jazz, avant-garde jazz, free improvisation | occupation = Musician | instrument = Saxophone, clarinet, tárogató | years_active = 1967–2023 | label = | past_member_of = Globe Unity Orchestra, Peter Kowald, Cecil Taylor, Last Exit, Derek Bailey, William Parker, Die Like a Dog Quartet, Sven-Åke Johansson, Evan Parker, Buschi Niebergall, Fred Van Hove, Han Bennink, Willem Breuker, Paal Nilssen-Love, John Zorn

Peter Brötzmann (6 March 1941 – 22 June 2023) was a German jazz saxophonist and clarinetist regarded as a central and pioneering figure in European free jazz. Throughout his career, he released over fifty albums as a bandleader. Amongst his many collaborators were key figures in free jazz, including Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton and Cecil Taylor, as well as experimental musicians such as Keiji Haino and Charles Hayward. His 1968 Machine Gun became "one of the landmark albums of 20th-century free jazz".

Biography

Life

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/67/Brötzmann,privat_38_x(cropped).jpg" caption="Brötzmann in 1979"] ::

Brötzmann was born in Remscheid on 6 March 1941. He studied painting in Wuppertal and was involved with the Fluxus movement but grew dissatisfied with art galleries and exhibitions. He experienced his first jazz concert when he saw American jazz musician Sidney Bechet while still in school at Wuppertal, and it made a lasting impression. He was also inspired by Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

Brötzmann had not abandoned his art training, designing most of his album covers. He taught himself to play clarinet and saxophone, and is also known for playing the tárogató. Among his first musical partnerships was with double bassist Peter Kowald. For Adolphe Sax, Brötzmann's first recording, was released in 1967 and featured Kowald and drummer Sven-Åke Johansson. In 1968, Machine Gun, an octet recording, was released. The album was self-produced under his BRO record label imprint and sold at concerts, and later marketed by FMP. In 2007, Atavistic reissued Machine Gun. "Machine Gun" was a nickname Don Cherry gave him "to describe his violent style".

Brötzmann died on 22 June 2023, at the age of 82, at home in Wuppertal, Germany.

Career

The album Nipples was recorded in 1969 with many of the Machine Gun musicians, including drummer Han Bennink, pianist Fred Van Hove, tenor saxophonist Evan Parker, and British guitarist Derek Bailey. The second set of takes from these sessions, called More Nipples, is more raucous. Fuck de Boere (dedicated to Johnny Dyani) is a live album of free sessions from these early years, containing two long improvisations, a 1968 recording of "Machine Gun" live (earlier than the studio version) and a longer jam from 1970. Brötzmann was a member of Bennink's Instant Composers Pool, a collective of musicians who released their own records and that grew into a 10-piece orchestra.

The logistics of touring with the ICP tentet or his octet resulted in Brötzmann reducing the group to a trio with Han Bennink and Fred Van Hove. Bennink was a partner in Schwarzwaldfahrt, an album of duets recorded outside in the Black Forest in 1977, with Bennink drumming on trees and other objects in the woods.

In 1981, Brötzmann made a radio broadcast with Frank Wright and Willem Breuker (saxophones), Toshinori Kondo (trumpet), Hannes Bauer and Alan Tomlinson (trombones), Alexander von Schlippenbach (piano), Louis Moholo (drums), and Harry Miller (bass). This was released as the album Alarm.

In the 1980s, Brötzmann's music was influenced by heavy metal and noise rock. He was a member of Last Exit and recorded music with the band's bass guitarist and producer Bill Laswell.

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/Peter_Brötzmann_on_tenor_saxophone.jpg" caption="Brötzmann on tenor saxophone, Minnesota Sur Seine, 2006"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/Peter-Brotzmann_14Dec2008_Lviv.jpg" caption="Brötzmann at the Sonore concert, [[Lviv]], December 2008"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/ae/Peter-Brötzmann.jpg" caption="Brötzmann in 2011"] ::

::figure[src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a3/peter-brotzmann_DSC01602.jpg" caption="Brötzman in [[Aarhus]] 2015"] ::

Brötzmann released over fifty albums as a bandleader and appeared on dozens more. His "Die Like a Dog Quartet" (with Toshinori Kondo, William Parker, and drummer Hamid Drake) was loosely inspired by saxophonist Albert Ayler, a prime influence on Brötzmann's music. Beginning in 1997, he toured and recorded regularly with the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet (initially an octet), which he disbanded after an ensemble performance in November 2012 in Strasbourg, France.

Brötzmann also recorded or performed with Cecil Taylor, Keiji Haino, Willem van Manen, Mats Gustafsson, Ken Vandermark, Conny Bauer, Joe McPhee, Paal Nilssen-Love, with Oxbow, and with Caspar Brötzmann, his son.

Recordings

Recordings with Brötzmann as leader include:

With Die Like a Dog Quartet

With Hamid Drake

With Mahmoud Guinia and Hamid Drake

With Moukhtar Gania and Hamid Drake

With Milford Graves and William Parker

With Keiji Haino

With Fred Lonberg-Holm

With Last Exit

With Harry Miller

With Oxbow

  • An Eternal Reminder Of Not Today – Live at Moers (Trost Records, 2022)

With William Parker

With Steve Swell and Paal Nilssen-Love

  • Krakow Nights (Not Two, 2015)
  • Live in Copenhagen (Not Two, 2016)
  • Live in Tel Aviv (Not Two, 2017)

With Fred Van Hove

  • Balls (FMP, 1970)
  • The End (FMP, 1971)
  • Elements (FMP, 1971)
  • Brötzmann/Van Hove/Bennink (FMP, 1973)
  • Tschus (FMP, 1975)
  • Outspan No 1 (FMP, 1975)
  • Outspan No 2 (FMP, 1975)
  • 1971 (Corbett vs. Dempsey, 2015)
  • Couscouss De La Mauresque (FMP, 2017)--

With Sakari Luoma and Nikolai Yudanov

  • Fryed Fruit (Red Toucan Records 2001)

With Wild Man's Band

  • Three Rocks and a Pine (Ninth World Music, 1999)
  • The Darkest River (Ninth World Music, 2001)
  • Fredensborg (Ninth World Music, 2015)
  • Live Kobenhavn 2009 (Ninth World Music, 2015)

With Sakari Luoma & Nikolai Yudanov

  • Fryed Fruit (Red Toucan Records, 2001)

With Oliver Schwerdt and Christian Lillinger

  • Biturbo!, Capt'n (Euphorium Records, 2017)
  • Karacho! (Euphorium Records, 2017)
  • Hot Ass/Beauty Legs (Euphorium Records, 2019)
  • Bambule! (Euphorium Records, 2019)--

As sideman

With Frode Gjerstad

  • Invisible Touch (Cadence, 1999)
  • Sharp Knives Cut Deeper (Splasc(H), 2003)
  • Soria Moria (FMR, 2003)
  • Live at the Empty Bottle (Circulasione Totale, 2019)

With Globe Unity Orchestra

  • Globe Unity 73: Live in Wuppertal (FMP, 1973)
  • Pearls (FMP, 1977)
  • Jahrmarkt/Local Fair (Po Torch, 1977)
  • Improvisations (Japo, 1978)
  • Hamburg '74 (FMP, 1979)
  • For Example: Workshop Freie Musik 1969–1978 (FMP, 1979)
  • Globe Unity 67 & 70 (Atavistic, 2001)
  • Globe Unity 2002 (Intakt, 2003)
  • Baden-Baden '75 (FMP, 2011)
  • FMP: Im Rückblick / In Retrospect (FMP, 2011)
  • ...Und Jetzt Die Sportschau (Trost, 2013)

With others

Films

Two documentaries of Brötzmann's music were produced to honour Brötzmann's 70th birthday in 2011:

  • Rage! (also Soldier of the Road), film by Bernard Josse in collaboration with Gérard Rouy (2011)
  • Brötzmann, Filmproduktion Siegersbusch, documentary film by René Jeuckens, Thomas Mau and Grischa Windus (DVD, 2011). The film received awards including the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik.

Awards

Brötzmann received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Vision Festival in New York City. The same year, he was bestowed the German Jazz Award for his life's achievements.

In 2021, Brötzmann and Nils Petter Molvær were awarded the European Film Awards for their music for the history drama Große Freiheit. In 2022 he received the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, described by the jury as a personality "going on an individual path, change listening and set new standards in avantgarde jazz" ("die ihren individuellen Weg ging, Hörgewohnheiten veränderte und Maßstäbe setzte im Avantgarde-Jazz").

Books

References

References

  1. Eede, Christian. (23 June 2023). "The Quietus {{!}} News {{!}} Peter Brötzmann Has Died, Aged 82".
  2. (1992). "[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music". [[Guinness Publishing]].
  3. (23 June 2023). "Peter Brötzmann, the heart — and lungs — of European free jazz, dead at 82".
  4. Jones, Andrew. (21 June 2018). "Brötzmann Reflects on 'Machine Gun' as it Hits 50th Anniversary".
  5. Dacks, David. (2007). "Peter Brötzmann Web Interview". Exclaim! Magazine.
  6. Beaumont-Thomas, Ben. (23 June 2023). "Peter Brötzmann, legend of free jazz, dies at 82". [[The Guardian]].
  7. Weber, Julian. (23 June 2023). "Freejazzsaxofonist Peter Brötzmann gestorben: Sie nannten ihn Machine Gun". Die Tageszeitung: taz.
  8. Sandner, Wolfgang Sandner. (23 June 2023). "Der sanfte Wüterich". [[Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
  9. "The History of the Instant Composers Pool Orchestra".
  10. "Peter Brötzmann – Alarm".
  11. https://www.freejazzblog.org: [https://www.freejazzblog.org/2022/10/oxbow-feat-peter-brotzmann-eternal.html ''Peter Brötzmann & Oxbow at Moers Festival 2018'']
  12. Strauss, Matthew. (23 June 2023). "Peter Brötzmann, Free Jazz Saxophonist, Dies at 82".
  13. "Peter Brötzmann". [[Trost Records]].
  14. "Grade List: Peter Brotzmann".
  15. Olewnick, Brian. "Peter Brötzmann: Solo".
  16. Jurek, Thom. "Peter Brötzmann: Réservé".
  17. "Peter Brötzmann: The Marz Combo Live in Wuppertal".
  18. "The Atlanta Concert (ODL10006 vinyl LP)".
  19. "Peter Brötzmann: Lost & Found".
  20. "Peter Brötzmann – Mental Shake".
  21. "Han Bennink / Peter Brötzmann: Ein Halber Hund Kann Nicht Pinkeln".
  22. "FMP 0440: Schwarzwaldfahrt: Brötzmann/Bennink".
  23. "Peter Brötzmann: Still Quite Popular After All Those Years".
  24. "FMP CD 64 / Die Like a Dog: Fragments of music, life and death of Albert Ayler / Brötzmann/Kondo/Parker/Drake".
  25. "FMP CD 97 / Little Birds Have Fast Hearts No. 1 / Peter Brötzmann / Die Like A Dog Quartet".
  26. "FMP CD 101 / Little Birds Have Fast Hearts No. 1 / Peter Brötzmann / Die Like A Dog Quartet".
  27. "Peter Brötzmann Die Like A Dog Quartet: From Valley To Valley".
  28. "FMP CD 118 / Aoyama Crows / Peter Brötzmann / Die Like A Dog Quartet".
  29. "Die Like a Dog Quartet – The Complete FMP Recordings".
  30. "Die Like a Dog Quartet – Close Up".
  31. "The Dried Rat-Dog (OD12004)".
  32. "Live at the Empty Bottle (ODL10005)".
  33. "The Wels Concert (OD12013)".
  34. "Peter Brötzmann, Hamid Drake, Maallem Mokhtar Gania – The Catch of a Ghost".
  35. "BEA-001: Peter Brötzmann, Milford Graves, William Parker: Historic Music Past Tense Future".
  36. "Peter Brötzmann – Keiji Haino – Evolving Blush or Driving Original Sin".
  37. "Peter Brötzmann/Keiji Haino: The intellect given birth to here (eternity) is too young".
  38. "Peter Brötzmann – The Brain of the Dog in Section".
  39. "Peter Brötzmann – Ouroboros".
  40. "Peter Brötzmann – Memories of a Tunicate".
  41. Kot, Greg. (2007). "Last Exit".
  42. Nicholson, Stuart. "Last Exit "The Noise of Trouble" — Forgotten Jazz Classics".
  43. "Brötzmann / Miller / Moholo: The Nearer the Bone, The Sweeter the Meat". Cien Fuegos Records.
  44. "Brötzmann / Miller / Moholo: Opened, But Hardly Touched". Cien Fuegos Records.
  45. "Peter Brötzmann/Hamid Drake/William Parker: Never Too Late But Always Too Early (Dedicated to Peter Kowald)".
  46. "Peter Brötzmann – Krakow Nights".
  47. "Peter Brötzmann – Live in Copenhagen".
  48. "Peter Brötzmann – Live in Tel Aviv".
  49. "Peter Brötzmann: Balls".
  50. "Peter Brötzmann: The End".
  51. "Peter Brötzmann: Elements".
  52. "Peter Brötzmann: FMP 130".
  53. "Peter Brötzmann discgoraphies".
  54. "Big Bad Brötzmann Trio: Biturbo!, Capt'n".
  55. "Big Bad Brötzmann Quintet: Karacho!".
  56. "Big Bad Brötzmann Trio: Hot Ass/Beauty Legs".
  57. "Big Bad Brötzmann Quintet: Bambule!".
  58. "Frode Gjerstad and Peter Brötzmann – Invisible Touch".
  59. "Frode Gjerstad Trio with Peter Brötzmann – Sharp Knives Cut Deeper".
  60. "Frode Gjerstad / Peter Brötzmann – Soria Moria".
  61. "Frode Gjerstad Trio + Peter Brötzmann – Live At The Empty Bottle".
  62. "Globe Unity Orchestra discography".
  63. Milner, Roz. (June 9, 2016). "Ginger Baker Goes Absolutely Wild on No Material". Bearded Gentlemen Music.
  64. Westergaard, Sean. "Ginger Baker's No Material: Live in Munich, Germany 1987".
  65. Jenkins, Todd S.. (2004). "Brötzmann, Peter". Greenwood.
  66. Watson, Ian R.. (2002). "Don Cherry/Kryzystof Penderecki Actions Review". [[BBC]].
  67. Lopez, Rick. "Marilyn Crispell Sessionography".
  68. "FMP 1000: Andrew Cyrille meets Peter Brötzmann in Berlin: Brötzmann/Cyrille Duo".
  69. (23 May 2016). "Laboratorio Musicale Suono C + Peter Brotzmann: DEcomposition".
  70. (2 August 2007). "All About Jazz Review".
  71. Henkin, Andrey. (10 December 2004). "Evan Parker: America 2003 & The Bishop's Move".
  72. "Manfred Schoof – European Echoes".
  73. "Alms/Tiergarten (Spree)". [[AllMusic]].
  74. Wynn, Ron. "Cecil Taylor: Olu Iwa". [[AllMusic]].
  75. (2023). "Eyal Hareuveni's Best Releases of 2011".
  76. Marmande, Francis. (12 November 2012). "Peter Brötzmann, un flot, un flux, un torrent". [[Le Monde]].
  77. (13 August 2014). "Jazz Index: Peter Brötzmann".
  78. (2023). "Team".
  79. (October 2011). "Quarterly Critic's Choice".
  80. "Peter Brotzmann Honored with Lifetime Achievement Award at Vision Festival". [[AllMusic]].
  81. (26 August 2015). "Albert Mangelsdorff-Preis 2011 für Peter Brötzmann". [[Neue Musikzeitung]].
  82. "Ehrenpreise 2022". [[Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik]].

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1941-births2023-deaths21st-century-german-male-musicians21st-century-german-saxophonistsatavistic-records-artistsavant-garde-jazz-musicianscimp-artistsfmp/free-music-production-artistsgerman-jazz-saxophonistsgerman-male-jazz-musiciansglobe-unity-orchestra-membersicp-orchestra-memberslast-exit-(free-jazz-band)-membersgerman-male-saxophonistsokka-disk-artistspeople-from-remscheidmusicians-from-the-rhine-provincebest-composer-european-film-award-winners