Rebirth of Brö

The Ink is Gone [Brö 3]	Still Quite Popular After All These Years [Brö 4]

Brötzmann has an uncanny facility for establishing and sustaining resilient rapport with drummers. First came Sven-Åke Johansson as the engine room on his earliest recordings. Then Han Bennink signed on as the combustible rhythmic tinder for his trios of the late 60s and early 70s. Louis Moholo arrived at the close of the latter decade, joining bassist Harry Miller in what many consider Brötzmann's most satisfying small group. The dawn of the 90s heralded a solidifying of Chicago ties and the blossoming of his relationship with Hamid Drake. Since then he's teamed with Peter Uuskyla, Michael Wertmüller, Nasheet Waits, Frank Samba and several of others in an ongoing series of highly galvanic encounters.

The relaunch of Brötzmann’s Brö imprint and the subsequent release these two recent entries place precise emphasis on his acumen at selecting felicitous percussive partners. In line with the label’s earlier incarnation releases (For Adolphe Sax and Machine Gun) both albums are LP only. The format offers both frugality (neither album cracks the 40-minute marker) and plenty of sleeve-space for Brötzmann’s signature graphics. Each is pressed on weighty 180-gram vinyl and housed in sturdy silk-screened cardboard sleeves custom-crafted to enlarge vinyl mavens’ eyes to the circumference of saucers.

Both records feature Brötzmann working from the same basic satchel of instruments including: clarinet, tarogato, alto and tenor saxophones. The Ink is Gone combines music from two separate performances, the first from Boston, the other from Philly, each sequestered to a single side. Walter Perkins presence as Brötzmann’s partner behind the drum kit offers an unexpected surprise. Perkins’ accomplishments as a jazz percussionist of strong merit are manifold. From his early-60s tenure fronting the Modern Jazz Two (w/ bassist Bob Cranshaw), through sideman stints with Rashaan Roland Kirk, Charles Earland and an impressive number of others, to later eclectic work with avant bluesman Cedell Davis and even a recent gig with William Parker (preserved in digital perpetuity on Bob’s Pink Cadillac), Perkins’ sticks have stamped a zigzag path through postbop jazz history.

Yet even with such a varied vitae Perkins’ fit with stoic German seems incongruous on paper. It’s a concern mostly coffined by the opening onslaught of “Boot the Bastards Out” as Brötzmann’s alto fires a stormy salvo of renal bursts bracketed by the Gatling gun tattoo of Perkins’ snare. The drummer whoops and hollers between punishing rat-ta-tat-tats, further crumpling any sense of polite decorum into a tight-fisted ball and tossing it matter-of-factly at the nearest trash receptacle. On the title track earlier recalcitrance dissolves into a gradually evolving line. Perkins’ sketches a swaying, skeletal meter and Brötzmann scribbles emotively across it, employing dusky-hued clarinet as ink-pregnant pen.

“The Beast Filled Dark & the Beautiful Forest,” a piece redolent with Brötzmann’s gothic preoccupations, builds from a prefatory Perkins’ and the entrance of the German’s doleful tenor tracing another emotion-wrung melody. The drummer hangs back, offering only sparse and muted cymbal patter. Roused by the relative calm, Brötzmann’s resumes with renewed vigor, disgorging a spate of passionate gut-forged gusts as Perkins’ slips in a precipitous sliding backbeat.

The album’s flip parses into two lengthy pieces. The first, a medley, unfolds to the mournful strains of Brötzmann’s tarogato and a slowly coalescing tribal pulse from Perkins’ cymbals and tom. Brötzmann gives himself over to one of his custom ululating trances while the drums boil boisterously around him shot through with Perkins’ shouts and cries. Another brittle series of martial rolls signals the return of impetuous tenor as the two trade staccato volleys that froth and collide on the cocky closer “The Wind.”

Somewhat tongue-in-cheek in title, Still Quite Popular After All These Years is still spot on in its appraisal; that is if readers consider the niche region of improv as a proper place for popularity contests. Bennink’s clout and qualifications suggest a stature similar to Brötzmann’s. And though this is their first duo record in over a quarter century, they manage to hit the ground running as if that prior date was just yesterday. The tracks dispense with clever titles and distill signifiers down to only the instruments played. “Clarinet/drums” precedes “tarogato/drums” and so forth.

Perhaps most surprising is the measured restraint shown throughout much of the interplay. This is a relatively quiet record, especially by Brötzmann and Bennink standards, with some passages approaching the edges of inaudibility. Bennink erects insinuating percussive patter, mostly on brushes, as interstitial rhythmic cartilage between. The close of the first side finds the German outlining with aerated clarinet the melody to “Master of a Small House,” a tune scripted in honor of bassist Fred Hopkins and first released on his hatOLOGY album with Joe McPhee Tales Out of Time (it’s a tune I’ve also heard him interpolate on another recent disc Danquah Circle). The haunting and elegantly elemental motif is one worthy of a consideration as his calling card canticle.

The album’s second side indexes space for Bennink’s humor with inflated press rolls and vocalizations counterweighing Brötzmann’s more serious locutions on clarinet, alto and tenor. An incessant high-hat and clickety-clack cadence builds tension broken by the regal spout of anthemic alto, plowing an obdurate path and wasting no time in looking back. Bennink’s tumbling solo is a model of tautly measured muscle. Its athletic pleasures leave Brötzmann primed for the majestic tenor-forwarded finale flanked by energized gravity-defying bombs and syncopations.

Bennink has history and shared vernacular in his corner. He’s consequently a more consistent and copasetic partner, his myriad rhythms embellishing and goading in equal measure. Conversely, Perkins sometimes sounds fidgety with the freedom at his disposal and there are occasions when he relies to heavily on stock beats and patterns. But both drummers succeed in coaxing out impassioned playing from their venerable partner. Each encounter is well worth procuring, even at the steep asking price tag. The pair of platters also rewards a pristine stylus. Be warned; an aged or worn needle will likely obfuscate some of the quieter interplay with its invasive pops and crackles.

~ Derek Taylor