By Lee Rice Epstein
Recorded live at London’s Cafe OTO over two nights in February 2023,
The Quartet
presents the great Peter Brötzmann’s final concerts. The concerts reunited
Brötzmann with one of his iconic groups, a quartet with bassist John
Edwards, drummer Steve Noble, and vibraphonist Jason Adasiewicz. Cafe OTO’s
house record label was launched with a debut recording of Brötzmann,
Edwards, and Noble, a searing blast of delight titled
the worse the better. The follow-up,
Mental Shake, introduced Adasiewicz to the group, expanding of course the size and
sound of the quartet, also reshaping it as a unit with four equal sides.
That recording was made in 2013, released in 2014, and ten years later, the
new one shows the quartet continued to grow as a powerful, dynamic, and
passionate improvising group.
In four tracks representing early and late sets by night, Brötzmann,
Edwards, Noble, and Adasiewicz perform more like an organism in fluxing
evolution than something nearing the unexpected end of its time. Edwards
and Noble, in particular, are two of the most creative players in the area
of free jazz, layering in polyrhythms and countering melodic gestures with
unexpected rhythmic pivots. Brötzmann organized a number of iconic trios,
it’s the addition of Adasiewicz that gives this quartet its unique position
in his tremendous discography. One of the notable aspects of Brötzmann
that’s always worth revisiting is how, unlike other “lead” saxophonists,
his trios and quartets were egalitarian, a representative characteristic of
European free jazz. Throughout all four sets, there’s never a sense that
it’s Brötzmann and his backing band—you could list any of the four players
as a “lead,” without changing a note, and the feeling would be the same.
Remarkably, for players associated so closely with words like raw, blast,
and power, The Quartet (and, naturally, the quartet itself)
demonstrates how sensitive and connected the music is; despite common
misconceptions of Brötzmann as an overblowing machine, he was an inventive
player who approached improvising with intention and clarity. “Part 2”
opens with a fantastic Rollins-inspired swinging melody, which, owing to
Edwards and Noble’s inventiveness, lingers in an extended meditative state
before switching gears. Later, “Part 3” begins on an improvisatory
invocation, featuring Adasiewicz in gorgeous form. Each set finds the
quartet anew, pushing its own boundaries, serious and playful, and
inarguably transcendent.