Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet
Peter Brotzmann has led a number of internationally renowned large ensembles since the late 1960s. The latest, called the Chicago Tentet, is one of the best. It was first organized by Brotzmann with the assistance of writer/presenter John Corbett in January, 1997 as an idea for a one-time octet performance that included Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang (drums), Kent Kessler (bass) and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Ken Vandermark and Mars Williams (reeds), and Jeb Bishop (trombone).
Peter Brotzmann has led a number of internationally renowned large ensembles since the late 1960s. The latest, called the Chicago Tentet, is one of the best. It was first organized by Brotzmann with the assistance of writer/presenter John Corbett in January, 1997 as an idea for a one-time octet performance that included Hamid Drake and Michael Zerang (drums), Kent Kessler (bass) and Fred Lonberg-Holm (cello), Ken Vandermark and Mars Williams (reeds), and Jeb Bishop (trombone).
Signs
*2023 stock* "A masterful statement from the Peter Brotzmann Tentet – a large group, but one that's capable of a rich array of sounds and sentiments – maybe given best exposure here in this key recording from the prime years of the ensemble! Ten players can be a huge number, especially when improvising so much – but these guys all have ears that are beautifully tuned to each other, and which really seems to not only bring out the best in each member, but also push the whole group together with a…
Be Music, Night
*2023 stock* "Peter Brotzmann's Chicago Tentet combines some of the finest avant improvisers out of Chicago and Europe. For a such a logistically and musically complex multi-member outfit they've had a rather long and significant life. And they still flourish today, as witnessed by their recent European tour. We turn the clock back to 2004, and a Tentet gig recorded at Wall to Wall in Chicago. It was auspicious and fortuitious that the mikes were in place, the “tapes" running that day, because t…
Stone/Water
Featuring Ken Vandermark & Mats Gustafsson. Recorded live at Victoriaville in May of 1999. Fantastic live material from a very unique group – the instantly-legendary meeting of reedman Peter Brotzmann with the leading lights of the Chicago avant jazz scene in the 90s – brought together into a tremendous tentet that's maybe even better than the sum of its parts! The group features Brotzmann on tenor and clarinet, Ken Vandermark on tenor and bass clarinet, Jeb Bishop on trombone, Fred Lomberg-Holm…
1 / 2 / 3
*2023 stock* "Improvised music is invariably meant for live consumption, where the give-and-take between musicians is laid bare for all to hear and the ephemeral nature of the playing is intrinsically linked to that one moment that’s never to be repeated. In a way, recordings of improvised music negate the one arguably essential tenet of improv — namely, spontaneous composition: Even the most unusual and challenging music, once recorded, becomes permanent and obviously immutable. Though listenin…
Ultraman vs. Alien Metron
Tip! In the first years of its existence, starting in 1997, the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet worked as a collective, inviting all and any of its participants to contribute compositions to the band's repertoire. Eventually, the Tentet would jettison scores and pre-planned structures altogether, opting for free improvisation, but on their early tours and initial recordings they played pieces written by the various band members. A marathon set of summer studio sessions in 2002, just off a U.S. …
Concert For Fukushima
Concert film by Pavel Borodin featuring the Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet benefit concert at the Music Unlimited festival in Wels. Guests: Toshinori Kondo, Michiyo Yagi, Yoshihide Otomo and Akira Sakata It was a special wish of the curator of the 2011 Music Unlimited Festival (Wels, Austria), Peter Brötzmann, to organize a charity concert in aid of the Fukushima nuclear disaster recovery effort. For that purpose, the Chicago Tentet, one of Brötzmann's main bands since 15 years, invited f…
Stone/Water
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. Youth…
3 Nights In Oslo
Awesome 5 CD box set recorded over 3 nights in Oslo on February 19-21, 2009 at Victoria, Nasjonal Jazzscene. This time out the Tentet +1 includes Mats Gustaffson, Ken Vandermark, Jeb Bishop, Joe Mcphee, Johannes Bauer, Per Ake Holmlander, Fred Lonberg-Holm, Kent Kessler, Michael Zerang & Paul Nilssen-Love.
American Landscapes 2
American Landscapes 2 ramps up the intensity slowly and with the clear objective to display power and a thorough sense of control. The first 13 minutes come at you sounding like a forest fire churning with stored energy. Underneath this unfurling force are composed parts that are revealed through close inspection. Once the energy breaks a trombone/saxophone duo stops the presses and summons a simple chamber horn interlude with other brass walking in. The piece wanders a bit into more open free p…