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Peter Brötzmann

Peter Brötzmann is the Merzbow of jazz. The man plays his saxophone as if he were intent on killing you in the most brutal and inhuman way. No other artist makes the instrument sound as close to pure noise as he does. But even so, Brötzmann isn't simply irritating noise, his sound is obviously influenced by the work of Albert Ayler and while maintaining his jazz roots, he manages to push the envelope to the limits of the genre; threatening to break down to pieces at any given moment but his (and his regular cohort's) incredible control of the instrument make his work quite engaging and exhausting throughout (no wonder there are often sexual and battle references).

Before Peter Brötzmann, I heard his son's work in the Caspar Brötzmann Massaker which I really enjoyed as well, even though it is quite different (but the aggressiveness seems to be a family thing). While doing some research about the Massaker, I eventually found out about Brötzmann's work and managed to download a few albums off of emusic.com back when there was no limits to the amount of downloading. It took me sometime to actually sit down and listen to it and even longer to actually purchase anything; you really have to be in the right state of mind to tackle this artist's work (breath in, breath out, clear mind, press play - how surprised I was when I heard that former US president Bill Clinton was a fan). I eventually found two of his early albums during a jazz-oriented shopping spree in early 2007. There will definitely be more records on the way now that I've started.

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