HAIRY BONES

German saxophonist Peter Brötzmann started his career in the 1960s and early '70s performing frequently with a core group of collaborators, notably bassists Peter Kowald and Buschi Niebergall, drummers Han Bennink and Sven-Åke Johansson, pianists Misha Mengelberg and Fred Van Hove, and trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff, and with these players and others he was part of the Globe Unity Orchestra. His circle of musical associates has expanded and expanded throughout his career, though, and in recent years he's begun working with some of the most ferocious players on the current European scene. Trumpeter Toshinori Kondo was Brötzmann's front-line partner in the 1990s quartet Die Like a Dog; bassist Massimo Pupillo comes from the Italian jazz-noise-metal group Zu; and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love, a Swede, seems to work with as many people as Brötzmann himself. This combination of players, none of whom is particularly known for subtlety, creates a highly combustible sound on read more...