Peter Brotzmann / Han Bennink Duo at Vision Club, October 6, 2006

First NYC Appearance of European Free Music Duo Since 1975

What: Peter Brotzmann / Han Bennink Duo Vision Club Series Fall Kickoff
Dates/Times: Friday, October 6. 2006
Two Sets at 8 and 10 pm
Place: Clemente Soto Velez SEA Theater 107 Suffolk Street, 2nd Floor Cost: $20 per set / $10 students and seniors

“Peter Brotzmann has exemplified European improvised music for over 40 years"--All About Jazz

“What makes Bennink special is his manifest love for the music, a love that inclines him to tear down the cardboard walls that too often separate different schools of jazz"--Drummer World

New York, NY Arts for Art proudly kicks off its fall 2006 season of the Vision Club Series with a powerhouse duo: saxophonist Peter Brotzmann and drummer Han Bennink. The two free music masters have a long history, first in Brotzmanns large projects, notably the 1968 Machine Gun. A trio with Belgian pianist Fred Van Hove grew out of these collaborations. But in 1976 the two free music masters began work as a duo releasing a series of recordings, concluding with 1980's Atsugi Concert. They weren't heard from again “on wax" until Brotzmann booked a series of performances in early 2004 with the explicit intention of capturing the performances for later release. The result, Still Popular After All Those Years was issued on vinyl on Brotzmanns own resurrected BRO label later that same year.

Brotzmann was involved with the Fluxus movement, but grew dissatisfied with art galleries and exhibitions. He has designed most of his own album covers. He first taught himself to play clarinet, then sax. One of his first musical partnerships was that with with bassist, Peter Kowald. In the 1980s, he flirted with heavy metal and noise rock, including a stint in Last Exit. He has released over thirty albums as a bandleader, and has appeared on dozens more. His “Die Like A Dog Quartet" (with Toshinori Kondo, William Parker and Hamid Drake) is loosely inspired by saxophonist Albert Ayler, a prime influence on Brtzmann's music. Since 1997 he has toured and recorded regularly with the Peter Brtzmann Chicago Tentet (initially an Octet).

Through the 1960s, Bennink drummed with American musicians visiting the Netherlands, including Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins. He became a central figure in the emerging European free improvisation scene, co-founding the Instant Composers Pool in 1967 with Misha Mengelberg and Willem Breuker. Through much of the 1990s he played in Clusone 3 with saxophonist and clarinetist Michael Moore and cellist Ernst Reijseger. His style is wide-ranging, running from conventional jazz drumming to highly unconventional free improvisation, for which he often uses whatever objects happen to be onstage (chairs, music stands, instrument cases), his own body (a favorite device involves putting a drumstick in his mouth and striking it with the other stick), and the entire performance space -- the floor, doors, and walls.