Peter Brötzmann Chicago Tentet - American Landscapes 1 & 2

Okka Disk 12067/68

This year marks the tenth anniversary of the inception of reedman Peter Brötzmann’s Chicago Tentet, which has resulted in nine recordings (including these two) and a number of festival appearances. The city of the group’s namesake will apparently be hosting performances honoring their longevity later this year; indeed, a decade is a long time for a group to work together, especially one this large and in these lean times. Sure, there have been some lineup changes over the years, but the core of reedmen Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark and Mats Gustafsson remain in place, in addition to cellist Fred Lonberg-Holm, bassist Kent Kessler and drummer Michael Zerang. Trumpeter/altoist Joe McPhee (Poughkeepsie, NY) and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love (Norway) are now mainstays, and these recordings add German trombonist Johannes Bauer and Swedish tubaist Per-Åke Holmlander to the proceedings. Bauer has worked with the Globe Unity Orchestra as well as recording on Brötzmann’s nonet Alarm (FMP, 1983), and Holmlander is a mainstay of Vandermark’s Territory Band and Barry Guy’s New Orchestra.

American Landscapes embraces large-ensemble freedom almost unilaterally; whereas Be Music, Night (Okka Disk, 2005) was a varied set including readings of the poetry of Kenneth Patchen and Signs/Images (Okka, 2004) consisted of pieces by members of the group (“All Things Being Equal” is a sprawling, hard-swinging Vandermark number), this set is made up of two long directed improvisations credited to Brötzmann. Each piece fits on one disc, the first clocking just under 45 minutes and the second a tad over fifty. Strangely, the discs themselves are misprinted; though each piece stands on its own as an independent work, the disc for Landscapes #1 contains the music for #2 and vice versa. For about three minutes of the first piece, a walking tempo over Kessler’s massive propulsion and a loose percussive web provides an easy backing for the leader’s tenor, as Vandermark’s clarinet punctuates the moment’s swing. It’s a brief foray, however, as screaming, stratospheric split-tones and growls appear almost out of nowhere, in response to Lonberg-Holm’s subtonal molasses in a steady buildup of density. Soon this subsides and tuba, trombone and low reeds demark areas spatially like large trees or buildings, while Gustafsson’s baritone threads the masses, cymbal taps marking his path. Yet the penchant for ten-man blowouts far outweighs subtle, spatial demarcation for the rest of the piece's length, despite an aesthetic that early on has nuance on its side.

Low woody rumbles of bass, cello, and clarinets herald the second landscape, dusky and punctuated by chimes, gongs and an array of small percussion instruments, Nilssen-Love and Zerang approximating a Barker/McCall approach to coloristic propulsion. There’s a bluesy meat to the slowly churning orchestra that, despite the predominantly European charge of the band, is surely indebted to AACM music. As Bauer and Holmlander burble and spar over the rustle, McPhee slowly adding his bugle call and the ensemble rising in response, the first several minutes of Landscape #2 are genuinely inspired by a shared history of improvisation. There’s an undeniable force to the frenzied highs that Brötzmann and Lonberg-Holm reach, above a massive stew of percussion, reeds and brass as the ten players go at it collectively, but by the same token there is predictability to this maelstrom. Even as the four-man rhythm section drives the landscape (notably, it’s not driven through), the feeling remains that one has experienced this very place before, many times.

On the whole, dividing up the ensemble into small areas of a few players is a device rarely used here – in fact previous Tentet recordings have maintained a balance between space and density. Stone/Water (Okka, 2000, recently reissued on vinyl) is notable for its series of duets, while Be Music, Night rarely employs the full ensemble's velocity, and only at programmatically necessary points. The landscape drawn here includes large swaths of blinding sonic intensity, relentless and nearly approaching violence as Lonberg-Holm screeches and yelps in distorted arco over cross-rhythms or Brötzmann blows fierce sans percussive comic relief. It’s when the storm subsides that one feels the intensity and honesty of the Tentet come through, a broken unison of clarinet, baritone and trombone singing a dewy song, knowing they’ll soon be buried. However, nuances like this are only occasionally found in the Tentet’s landscape, fenced in as it is by devil-may-care openness.

- Clifford Allen