Peter Brötzmann has gone silent

Only death could crush the indomitable spirit and ferocity of the sui generis improviser

A special Friday post in honor of the remarkable German reedist

Peter Brötzmann performing at Jazzfest Berlin, November 2, 2022 (photo: Anna Niedermeier)

On October 3, 1987 a gust of air pushed me back into my seat, but it really felt like I had been flung into the wall behind me. That powerful gust came from the tenor saxophone of Peter Brötzmann, the singular German reedist who died yesterday at age 82 after struggling with health issues over the last couple of years. That sonic slap in the face was a familiar sensation for people encountering him live for the first time. I was lucky to live in Chicago, as locals like organizer/journalist John Corbett, reedist Ken Vandermark, and Okka Disk founder Bruno Johnson forged a strong alliance with Brötzmann and he was a frequent visitor. In subsequent decades I heard him perform dozens of times in many contexts, from his incendiary duo set with guitarist Sonny Sharrock in 1989 at the Elbo Room—chronicled on Fragments, a recording made by activist Malachi Ritscher—to witnessing the first iteration of the Chicago-based octet in 1997. Few improvisers were as steely, muscular, fiery, and driven as Brötzmann. There were several occasions over the years where I felt that maybe I had seen enough concerts by him, but then I would go anyway and be blown away. He never, ever phoned it in, and that full immersion rubbed off most of the improvisers in Chicago at the time, especially Vandermark.

I’m not going to use this space to run down his countless accomplishments, including his crucial role in establishing a distinctively European take on jazz and improvised music back in the 1960s. He was a genuine legend who altered the course of music, but he never basked in his achievements, forever looking forward to breaking down new walls. I have no doubt that such assessments are being written as I type and we’ll have plenty of time to reflect upon and revisit his vast discography in the days, months, and years to come.

Brötzmann had been ravaged by health issues recently, coming down with pneumonia during the pandemic. I got to witness the first—or certainly one of the first—performances he gave as he tried to recover, when he played last summer at the Kongsberg Jazz Festival in Norway. Before he played a note he uncharacteristically addressed the audience at the tiny Gallery Låven, explaining his poor health, nonchalantly proclaiming that one of his lungs was “fucked.” He admitted that he wasn’t sure if he was capable of playing, and when he did pick up a horn he clearly struggled, playing in fits and starts, pausing, taking sips of water, and picking up an inhaler to assuage breathing problems he was having. After about 20 minutes he took a break, and not long after the second set began he stopped, and said, “It’s not working.” It was painful to watch, as he made no bones about the situation. Many of us wondered if he would appear for a scheduled duo set with Heather Leigh the following day, but he was there and the setting proved far more amenable. I’ve never been much of a Leigh fan, but she produced a steady thrum of sound, allowing Brötzmann to take a more measured approach without breaking up the flow of the music. He was unable to unleash the fury of yore, but with limited lung power he turned to the lyric quality that had always lurked in his music. It was a touching, hopeful performance.

For the last couple of years I have served as a programming consultant for Jazzfest Berlin and we had been talking about presenting the saxophonist’s trio with drummer Hamid Drake and the Moroccan guimbri master Maâlem Mokhtar Gania, the younger brother of the Gnawan master musician Mahmoud Gania—the trio featured on the brilliant Okka Disk album The WELS Concert, released in 1997. Maâlem appeared on a searing 2019 performance with the pair, released the following year as The Catch of a Ghost. As much as I loved the project I was skeptical about it working considering Brötzmann’s health, but we went ahead and took a chance. In the months leading up the concert it was actually Gania that dropped out for health issues, and he was replaced by Majid Bekkas, a Gnawan musician based in France. On Friday, November 4 of last year the trio gave a powerful performance to a packed house at Berliner Festspiele, bringing the audience to its feet when the concert ended. It was profoundly moving, and Brötzmann had summoned some divine power, pushing the music over the top into something remarkable. He may have lacked the old firepower but he had no shortage of ideas to share, and the trio revealed a profound beauty. Catching Ghosts, a recording of the performance, was released on April 28 by ACT Music. You can check out “Chalaba,” the opening piece, below.

Subsequently Brötzmann performed a handful of additional concerts, including a reunion of his mind-melting quartet with bassist John Edwards, drummer Steve Noble, and vibist Jason Adasiewicz at London’s Cafe Oto in February of this year. From all accounts, the concerts were incredible, but not long after the reedist was hospitalized and told that his body couldn’t handle the exertion of playing his instrument. I have no doubt that such a prognosis was hard for him to handle, just as it had certainly been a struggle to accept that after the pandemic he realized that he didn’t have the capacity to blow with the same energy his sound required. But what a life in music. Thanks for the sounds, Peter—I am but one of the many whose mind was blown by your art, repeatedly.