Nameless Sound Presents ::
Pioneers of European Free Improvisation
Peter Brotzmann and Han Bennink
on April 27, 2008

Peter Brotzmann (Germany) - saxophones, clarinets
Han Bennink (Holland) - drums, percussion
Sunday, April 27 2008 at 8pm
at Diverse Works
1117 East Freeway
Houston, TX

$13 General Admission
$10 Students
Everyone Under 18 Gets in For Free
Tickets Available at the Door

For Information,
Call Nameless Sound at 713-928-5653
or go to www.namelesssound.org

Pioneers of European free improvisation, Han Bennink and Peter Brotzmann made a landmark statement together in 1968 with "Machine Gun", the incendiary recording by the Peter Brotzmann Octet. The two continued their groundbreaking collaboration in duo, trio, and quartet settings. After 12 years, the contrast between Brotzmann's severe intensity and Bennink's gleeful anarchy had run its course. In 1980, they went separate ways, playing the last concert of their fruitful 12-year collaboration.

In 2004, Brotzmann organized a series of performances to reunite the duo after a 24-year hiatus. Time added perspective to the work of both artists. Though he still turns up the high heat, Brotzmann now reveals a lyricism at heart of his fury. Bennink's physicality is still prominent; but he has shown himself to be an heir to the tradition of the great swing drummers like Baby Dodds, Jo Jones, and Max Roach.

An art student with connections to the Fluxes movement, Peter Brotzmann rejected a career in the galleries after hearing a concert by jazz legend Sidney Bechet. Self-taught on saxophones and clarinets, Brotzmann played modern jazz influenced by Ornette Coleman and worked with American greats like Don Cherry and Steve Lacy. He was crucial at the beginning of Europe's free improvisation movement. Brotzmann developed a style similar to radical American saxophonist Albert Ayler (without much knowledge of Ayler), an uncompromising, screaming cry that challenged itself to greater heights of rage and energy. Time added subtlety to his sound. Bluesy lyricism and timeless muezzin-like calls emerged in later years. He is one of the most influential saxophone players in free improvisation.

One of the hard swinging drummers in jazz and improvised music, Han Bennink has a reputation as an anarchic and electrifying performer. Well known for his physicality and sense of humor, Bennink's concerts lie somewhere in the realm of virtuosic percussion display and dadaist performance. He is famous for coaxing unusual sounds from his drums, augmenting his kit with found debris, and drumming on any surface available (walls, floors, chairs, his own body). In Holland in the 1960s, Bennink was quickly recognized as an uncommonly versatile drummer. He accompanied visiting jazz greats like Sonny Rollins, Eric Dolphy and Dexter Gordon. At the same time, Bennink helped to create a European improvised music that evolved an identity separate from its jazz roots. His collaborators in the worlds of free jazz and improvisation include most of the important artists in the music: Don Cherry, Misha Mengelberg, John Tchicai, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Steve Lacy, Eugene Chadbourne, and many others. Bennink has also performed with the punk rock band the Ex, with whom he has done two tours of Ethiopia.

For more information on Peter Brotzmann, go to:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Brotzmann
www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/

For more information on Han Bennink, go to:
www.hanbennink.com/
www.efi.group.shef.ac.uk/

For more information on Nameless Sound, go to:
www.namelesssound.org

"This concert is part of Nameless Sound's Andrew Mark Ladd Memorial Concert Series."