Brotzmann Tomorrow / Ghost & Magik Markers Sunday

[Nicki P.]

Two great shows coming up... From our friend Scott V:

Two incredible shows this week at the Velvet Lounge, featuring rare
area appearances by legendary German improv saxophonist Peter
Brotzmann and Japanese psych stalwarts Ghost. Sure, Brotzmann
occasionally rolls through town with his tentet or Die Like a Dog;
this Thursday, he will give a lecture, perform solo, and collaborate
with Chromatic Mysteries (myself and Ed Ricart, plus possible special
guests). Ghost last played in DC in 2002, and they are absolutely one
of my favorite bands -- live and on record -- of the past 15 years. As
if that it isn't enough of a treat, Magik Markers are opening with
their brand of unpredictable improv, embodying the best aspects of No
Wave and punk and translating it for the 21st century. These shows
will be epic and they will be heavy...

Thursday, May 7
Velvet Lounge
915 U St NW WDC
http://www.velvetloungedc.com
202-462-3213
$12, doors at 8:30, show at 9, 18+!

Peter Brotzmann: lecture, solo, and in collaboration with Chromatic
Mysteries
http://www.myspace.com/peterbrotzmann

Born Remscheid, Germany on 6 March 1941; soprano, alto, tenor,
baritone and bass saxophones, a-clarinet, e-flat clarinet; bass
clarinet, tarogato.

Peter Brötzmann's early interest was in painting and he attended the
art academy in Wuppertal. Being very dissatisfied with the gallery/
exhibition situation in art he found greater satisfaction playing with
semi-professional musicians, though continued to paint (as well as
retaining a level of control over his own records, particularly in
record sleeve/CD booklet design). In late 2005 he had a major
retrospective exhibition jointly with Han Bennink - two separate
buildings separated by an inter-connecting glass corridor - in
Brötzmann's home town of Remscheid.


Self-taught on clarinets, he soon moved to saxophones and began
playing swing/bebop, before meeting Peter Kowald. During 1962/63
Brötzmann, Kowald and various drummers played regularly - Mingus,
Ornette Coleman, etc. - while experiencing freedoms from a different
perspective via Stockhausen, Nam June Paik, David Tudor and John Cage.
In the mid 1960s, he played with American musicians such as Don Cherry
and Steve Lacy and, following a sojourn in Paris with Don Cherry,
returned to Germany for his unorthodox approach to be accepted by
local musicians like Alex von Schlippenbach and Manfred Schoof.


The trio of Peter Brötzmann, Peter Kowald and Sven-Ake Johansson began
playing in 1965/66 and it was a combination of this and the Schoof/
Schlippenbach Quintet that gave rise to the first Globe Unity
Orchestra. Following the self-production of his first two LPs, For
Adolphe Sax and Machine Gun for his private label, BRÖ, a recording
for Manfred Eicher's 'Jazz by Post' (JAPO) [Nipples], and a number of
concert recordings with different sized groups, Brötzmann worked with
Jost Gebers and started the FMP label. He also began to work more
regularly with Dutch musicians, forming a trio briefly with Willem
Breuker and Han Bennink before the long-lasting group with Han Bennink
and Fred van Hove. As a trio, and augmented with other musicians who
could stand the pace (e.g. Albert Mangelsdorff on, for example, The
Berlin Concert), this lasted until the mid-1970s though Brötzmann and
Bennink continued to play and record as a duo, and in other
combinations, after this time. A group with Harry Miller and Louis
Moholo continued the trio format though was cut short by Miller's
early death.


The thirty-plus years of playing and recording free jazz and
improvised music have produced, even on just recorded evidence, a list
of associates and one-off combinations that include just about all the
major figures in this genre: Derek Bailey (including performances with
Company, e.g. Incus 51), Cecil Taylor, Fred Hopkins, Rashied Ali, Evan
Parker, Keiji Haino, Misha Mengelberg, Anthony Braxton, Marilyn
Crispell, Andrew Cyrille, Phil Minton, Alfred 23 Harth, Tony Oxley.
Always characterized as an energy player -- and the power-rock setting
of Last Exit with Ronald Shannon Jackson, Sonny Sharrock and Bill
Laswell, or his duo performances with his son, Casper, did little to
disperse this conviction -- his sound is one of the most distinctive,
life-affirming and joyous in all music. But the variety of Brötzmann's
playing and projects is less recognized: his range of solo
performances; his medium-to-large groups and, in spite of much ad hoc
work, a stability brought about from a corpus of like-minded
musicians: the group Ruf der Heimat; pianist Borah Bergman;
percussionist Hamid Drake; and Die Like a Dog, his continuing tribute
to Albert Ayler, with Drake, William Parker and Toshinori Kondo.


Peter Brötzmann continues a heavy touring schedule which, since 1996
has seen annual visits to Japan and semi-annual visits to the thriving
Chicago scene where he has played in various combinations from solo
through duo (including one, in 1997, with Mats Gustafsson) to large
groups such as the Chicago Octet/Tentet, described below. He has also
released a number of CDs on the Chicago-based Okka Disk label,
including the excellent trio with Hamid Drake and the Moroccan Mahmoud
Gania, at times sounding like some distant muezzin calling the
faithful to become lost in the rhythm and power of the music.


The "Chicago Tentet" was first organized by Brötzmann with the
assistance of writer/presenter John Corbett in January 1997 as an idea
for a one-time octet performance that included Hamid Drake and Michael
Zerang (drums), Kent Kessler (bass) and Fred Lomberg-Holm (cello), Ken
Vandermark and Mars Williams (reeds), and Jeb Bishop (trombone). The
first meeting was extremely strong and warranted making the group an
ongoing concern and in September of that same year the band was
expanded to include Mats Gustafsson (reeds) and Joe McPhee (brass) as
permanent members (with guest appearances by William Parker (bass),
Toshinori Kondo (trumpet/electronics), and Roy Campbell (trumpet)
during its tenure -- all in all a veritable who's who of the
contemporary improvising scene's cutting edge. Though the Tentet is
clearly led by Brötzmann and guided by his aesthetics, he has been
committed to utilizing the compositions of other members in the
ensemble since the beginning. This has allowed the band to explore a
large range of structural and improvising tactics: from the
conductions of Mats Gustafsson and Fred Lonberg-Holm, to the vamp
pieces of Michael Zerang and Hamid Drake, to compositions using
conventional notation by Ken Vandermark and Mars Williams, to
Brötzmann's graphic scores -- the group employs almost every
contemporary approach to composing for an improvising unit. This
diversity in compositional style, plus the variety in individualistic
approaches to improvisation, allows the Tentet to play extremely
multifaceted music. As the band moves from piece to piece, it explores
intensities that range from spare introspection to all out walls of
sound, and rhythms that are open or free from a steady pulse to those
of a heavy hitting groove. It is clear that the difficult economics of
running a large band hasn't prevented the group from continuing to
work together since its first meeting. Through their effort they've
been able to develop an ensemble sound and depth of communication hard
to find in a band of any size or style currently playing on the
contemporary music scene.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++

Sunday, May 10
Velvet Lounge
$12, doors at 8:30, show at 9:30, 18+!

Ghost (Drag City, Japanese psych)
Magik Markers (Drag City/Ecstatic Peace)


Ghost
http://www.ab.cyberhome.ne.jp/%7epochamal/
"In 1984 Ghost was formed in Tokyo. In the beginning, they played only
improvisation/freeform music naturally. But when they started their
first recording in 1988, their music had been changing to more
constructive one. Still now on their live activities we can find they
play improvisation sometimes.
Their music was based on acoustic guitar usually. A lot ethnic
instruments or strange instruments are added to it freely on
recording. And the place they play were so unique as examples —
Buddhist temples, churches, ruins, metro, fields, woods, caves... Such
strange methods are nothing but ones of their expressions. They are
Ghost anytime."


Ghost is:
Masaki Batoh: Vocal, Acoustic Guitar, Hurdy Gurdy, Banjo, etc.
Kazuo Ogino: Piano, Oscilator, Recorder, Lute, etc.
Michio Kurihara: Electric Guitar
Junzo Tateiwa: Tabla, Percussions, Drums
Takuyuki Moriya: Elecric Bass, Contra Bass
Taishi Takizawa (aka Giant): Flute, Theremin, Saxophone


Magik Markers
http://www.themagikmarkers.com

The Magik Markers self-referential improvisations and gritty brand of
strutting, spinning and splitting in packed houses, panel trucks, and
the underground sound and light discotheques, began in a Hartford
basement. Way back in 1987, Elisa Ambrogio met Leah Quimby. Elisa
Ambrogio had 7 cats, but no washer or drier, so she always smelled a
little 'off'. Leah Quimby had a weak sense of smell; they became fast
friends. In 1999, Elisa was traveling in Hungary, and met Peter Nolan.
Peter Nolan grew up in Mount Pleasant, Michigan; he was summering in
Budapest to escape the pressures of the exacting East Lansing
collegiate set. In a Jamesian twist of fate, he checked his email
before Elisa Ambrogio, setting the stage for a mammoth rock
collaboration the two travelers had no intimation of. Elisa's
grandparents Salvatore and Madeline Ambrogio lived in a two family
house in Hartford, CT that 4 generations of Ambrogios had called home.
Elisa, Pete and Leah moved into the upstairs apartment and Leah and
Pete began jamming in the basement. After Elisa joined Pete and Leah
in the basement, the band played some shows. INSIDE FACT: Did you know
early Magik Markers lyrics consisted of reciting the periodic table,
including all known lanthanoids and actinoids? TRUE. Quitting her mall
job, Elisa attended Smith College briefly majoring in Literature and
minoring in East Asian Studies and taking no honors. She dropped out
and the band went on its first US tour. Since then, the band has been
lucky enough to tour with Astral Blessing, Sonic Youth, Nautical
Almanac, Dinosaur Jr., Sunburned Hand of the Man, The Believers, Blues
Control, Lambsbread and work with rad muthas like Scott Colburn, Aaron
Mullan and Lee Ranaldo. In 2006 Leah Quimby, despite protests, left
the band to pursue her dream of owning an apple orchard on Prince
Edward Island. Left as only two, Peter Nolan and Elisa Ambrogio
soldier on, jamming before capacity crowds at home and abroad.