Reality and capitalism are stronger than anything.” “But the vision was bigger than the reality. We can open up their horizons,” Brötzmann said his hopes for what Machine Gun could do. Like its predecessors in that tradition, the album, which is being reissued by the Trost imprint, sought to reform a broken system by expressing profound and intangible truths while living within it. Ultimately, Machine Gun is the blues for a continent ravaged by a century of internecine warfare, unfathomable crimes against humanity and an uncertain future. While Cage and the European avant-garde made Machine Gun possible, its content owes more to the hot jazz of Louis Armstrong than the obscure theory emanating from academia at the time. In part, the octet achieved its sound by marshaling the expressive possibilities represented by the blues. The brutality of the album’s remaining 36 minutes exceeds the number of commonly recognized synonyms for “violent.” Parker weaves around the horn section’s staccato blasts, before Bennink’s drums blast a nervy military march alongside Peter Kowald’s wildly rumbling bass. Machine Gun’s 45-second intro forms one of jazz’s most distinctive mission statements. “I had to find a way to organize the most freedom possible, but to give some structure to hold onto.” But he heard what I was playing and was surprised by the sound I could make,” Brötzmann said. Evan Parker could play ‘Giant Steps,’ which was very impressive. The assembled group’s lack of familiarity with one another necessitated the approach. “It’s a Charles Ives thing: solo, solo background, solo.” It’s a very conventional, simply structured piece,” said the saxophonist, who has a handful of August tour dates set in California with avant-guitarist Keiji Haino. “I got some paper and wrote and drew some things. Despite the album’s iconoclastic reputation, Brötzmann conceived a relatively simple framework for it. Machine Gun, its name derived in part from Don Cherry’s description of Brötzmann’s distinctive sound, found a new start by returning to the very roots of jazz. In Germany, we all grew up with the same thing: ‘Never again.’ But in the government, all the same old Nazis were still there. But we wanted to change things we needed a new start. I never thought music was a healing force of the universe. But in the bandleader’s mind, “There is no contradiction between creation and destruction. It’s easy to explain the album’s singular energy as Brötzmann and company harness the era’s ambition of plotting a new path forward. Brötzmann also recruited rising British reedist Evan Parker. Alongside the drummer and bassist from his original trio, he brought together players already firmly established within the German and Dutch avant-garde, including Han Bennink and Willem Breuker, of the Instant Composers Pool. That was something for our ears,” Brötzmann said.Īfter gigging for years, two landmark performances with his trio at the Frankfurt Jazz Festival landed Brötzmann the opportunity to put a bigger band together. But so were Charles Mingus and Eric Dolphy. From the outset, as captured on his 1967 debut For Adolphe Sax, Brötzmann’s violent and experimental approach was fully on display.
“All we talked about was how to get rid of the old structures.”Ī perennial jazz fan, the stage provided Brötzmann with a more suitable home for his artistic vision than a pristine canvas. “, I was involved with various creative people-playwrights, actors, dancers and so forth,” he recalled. The emotional and political complexity it was born from still resonates today.īefore he entered the world of music, Brötzmann was studying to be a painter in Western Germany and was associated with Fluxus, a radical art movement influenced by John Cage and informed by an anti-commercial sentiment. The marathon, lung-bursting howl of Peter Brötzmann’s Machine Gun, which the saxophonist self-released on his BRÖ imprint 50 years ago, captured the anxiety of a generation grappling with the Vietnam War and civil unrest. Bassist Buschi Niebergall (left), saxophonist Peter Brötzmann and saxophonist Willem Breuker, shown here in 1970, perform on Machine Gun, which hits its 50th anniversary this year.