Label: Trost Records, 2023
Personnel - Peter Brötzmann: alto and tenor saxophone; Heather Leigh: pedal steel guitar; Fred Lonberg-Holm; cello, electronics.
German free jazz saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, a prolific in-the-moment creator, can be heard in the wonderful company of two musicians he knows very well: the Glasgow-based pedal steel guitarist Heather Leigh and the cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, a stalwart of the improvised jazz scene. The saxophonist released a handful of duo recordings with the former and played in several groups and settings (from duo to tentet) with the latter. The record we have in our hands, Naked Nudes, was recorded in his hometown, Wuppertal, on the occasion of his 80th birthday concerts celebration.
The music presented here consists of three functionally structured improvisations that, on one side, show that the trio has no interest in playing it safe, but on the other, doesn’t merely follow aleatory trajectories just for the fun of provoking and releasing energy. The outcome of this collaboration manifests the triumph of a levelheaded musical sense over any preconceived idea.
For nearly half an hour, the mighty title track demonstrates their passion, revealing newfound subtleties at every listening. Brötzamnn enters unaccompanied, later having the poignantly chanting vibration of cello and chiming steel guitar as a backdrop. The saxophonist blows his horn forcefully as the tapestry under his feet gradually roughens with noise guitar and electronics. Seven minutes in, and the whirring noise dissipates to make a new form emerge. A quiet lull made of uncanny timbral utterances appears but the chiming guitar puffs are turned into ominous noise in a subsequent phase. Like a distant, confusing dream, Leigh’s pitch-bending guitar waves invite Brötzmann to step into a resigned, supplicant redemption.
The other two tracks are shorter. “Flower Flaps” kicks off rumblingly and pointillistically, making way for the incisive and eloquent saxophone; “Johnny Anaconda” is a brew of sounds entrenched with bowed cello, guitar flaccidity, and keen sax manifestations that faintly blur the picture. Naked Nudes is thrilling and wholly original.
Favorite Track:
01 - Naked Nudes