PETER BROTZMANN MACHINE GUN FREE

This music, though analogous to much of the stuff coming out of US labels like ESP Records, was of a thoroughly different breed.

This music came out of an extremely volatile period of Twentieth Century history - shortly after the widespread turmoil of May 1968. After 'Machine Gun,' there won't be anything else out there that can shock you. Hearing 'Machine Gun' is exhilarating because you can hear the exhilaration the musicians feel, as though they're discovering for the first time truly new possibilities of group performance - and of course they are. But probably my favorite parts are the brief stretches where the band comes together for a unified effort in an actual `song' - kind of a high-school-football kind of big band romp, lifting the listener's head out of the soup until BrГ¶tzmann rips it all back up again. The only facet of time recognized is velocity.' Mostly what you'll get from 'Machine Gun' is loud, brilliant, pulsing sounds going every which way. Let's go to the liner notes: 'The endless aspect of this piece comes from its lack of time reference points.

PETER BROTZMANN MACHINE GUN FREE

This album goes well beyond the free jazz of 'Free Jazz.' Its truly unrelenting. No other recording I've ever heard sounds like this. The superlative double-drum sound Sven-Ake Johansson and Han Bennink (!!!) whip up really steals the show. Like most free jazz albums, there are a number of solos amidst the chaos (and notable ones, too, as these musicians were many of the most substantial figures in jazz in the decade to follow), but on 'Machine Gun' the solos seem to have to fight just to stay alive, and are always smashed to bits by the unstoppable percussion.

'Machine Gun' is the appropriate title, as the music sounds more like out-and-out war than jazz. The sound is loose like I never believed music could be. Here is an album to make not-for-the-weak precursors like Coltrane's 'Meditations' or 'Ascension,' or Coleman's 'Free Jazz' sound like 'The Girl from Ipanema.' 'Machine Gun' even surpasses Ayler in terms of pure havoc (though obviously Ayler's goal was never really havoc). 'Machine Gun' is extreme jazz in the extreme.

Peter brotzmann machine gun