Customer Reviews

Medicina

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is another great recording from Brotzmann, joined here by his Swedish mates in a sax/bass/drums free trio. MEDICINA is the fourth release from this group, following "Noise of Wings," "Flying Feathers," and "Live at Nefertiti's". Brotz does not suffer from a lack of documentation. Atavistic has over the last few years restored many of his great early recordings to disc, in cahoots with the German FMP label (see my EARLY BROTZ list). Whether old or new, there's very little that I've heard on disc by Brotzmann that was sub-par -- the only example that comes to mind was called NOTHUNG, a live sax/bass/drums trio with William Parker at the Knitting Factory that came out in 2002. One continuous performance, it just failed to sustain interest over an hour.

MEDICINA is organized in such a way as to avoid that problem, as it consists of 8 compositions (3 each by the drummer, Peeter Uuskyla, and the electric bassist, Peter Friis Nielsen, and 2 by Brotz), ranging from 6 to 15 minutes long. These compositions are frameworks for improvisation, of course, but the varying frameworks insure some variety of approach. This sounds like a sort of free jazz garage band, and I mean that in the best possible way. Uuskyla, in his liner notes, talks about the boredom of working a straight job, and using music to get in touch with your dreams and visions.

"There is not too much time to talk about it while you better play it, guts out, music as life security, as a daily spoonful of strong kicking medicine -- and you may be able to handle reality."

MEDICINA culminates with "Hard Times Blues," a Brotz piece, and it kicks that line from Uuskyla in unmistakable terms. This is raw, existential music, music that speaks from the gut, from the heart, music that refuses to go quietly, music that speaks of a determination to keep fighting, to keep loving, music of love and rage.

In this recording from 2003, Brotzmann plays alto and tenor saxes, tarogato, and alto clarinet along with Scandinavian colleagues Friis Neilsen on electric bass and Uuskyla on drums and percussion. There are seven original compositions, three by Uuskyla and two each by Friis Neilsen and Brotzmann: the shortest is around six minutes in length and the longest weighs in at just under fifteen minutes. It's resolutely modernist music, as you might expect, but at moments, Brotzmann pulls back on his trademark angularity and plays a softer and transparently melodic music, at least at the start of the pieces ("Some Ghosts Step Out" and "Here and Now"). By this point in his career, it almost doesn't matter with whom Brotzmann plays because Brotzmann is truly a jazz giant. He is technically fluent on all the instruments he plays and uses them to produce an endless flow of original and compelling music.

I don't find this to be among the most distinguished Brotzmann recordings, though. The electric bass is seriously under-recorded, sounding like it's coming through an echo chamber. For most of the album this isn't a problem: Friis Neilsen plays background to drummer Uuskyla and reedist Brotzmann but only solos once. Then it is a problem: the sound thumps out at you, insufficiently articulated to make you appreciate it. Uuskyla shares the majority of the solo space with Brotzmann. He's a solid modernist drummer. Something not that common among younger drummers, he plays well with brushes as well as sticks, e.g. the lower keyed clarinet piece, "Here and Now." Frequently, Brotzmann's horn lines echo the drummer's rhythmic patterns; Uuskyla is quick to pick up on Brotzmann's lines in return. I have nothing bad to say about Uuskyla's drumming but it doesn't excite me as much as, say, the zany fire cracker drumming of Hann Bennink or the explosive multi-rhythms of Ronald Shannon Jackson or Hamid Drake. The album as a whole is an unexceptionable piece of modernist jazz music, but except for Brotzmann, who seemingly can do no wrong, it's not exciting or original in the say that, say, the Machine gun sessions are, or Koln, with the all-star quartet Last Exit, or FMP 130 with pianist Fred van Hove and percussionist madman Hann Bennink. A solid addition to the Brotzmann corpus but not essential. 4-1/2 stars for Brotzmann, 3-1/2 for Uusklya, and 3 for Friis Neilsen and the mediocre sound quality of the recordin.g.