Customer Reviews

Schwartzwaldfahrt (1977)

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I recall finding out about this album a few years ago. At the time, it was selling for fairly hefty prices on auction sites. For that reason alone, it is great to see this recording reissued on CD at a reasonable price. What is even better is that this is an expanded edition, featuring an entire disc of previously unreleased music. I sincerely hope that Atavistic continues to reissue these long out-of-print gems originally released on FMP (how about doing Globe Unity's "Pearls" next?). The works of Brotzmann in particular are all deserving of reissue.

This recording, outside of the novelty of it being recorded in a forest, is not remotely indicative of the best work of either Brotzmann or Bennink. I'm a fan of free improvisation, but it works best when the players are "connected" and develop ideas from a conceptual perspective collectively. The playing on this recording is disconnected, random, and unfocused. Sure, it is a hoot occasionally to hear an airplane flying by or hear some birds chirping. However, when those sounds are as pleasurable and as interesting (if not more) as the music, we're in trouble. At that point, I could have skipped purchasing the CD altogether and just leaned my head out the bedroom window to listen to the wind blow.

Buy this CD anyway, simply to show Atavistic that there is a market out there for this stuff. This is a great reissue, if only because now we don't have to pay large sums of cash to buy an LP copy at an auction just to hear it.

Two strange gods of free jazz (one German and one Dutch) disappear into the Black Forest and create bucolic nature music with instruments and found objects on bitter, windy May days.