Peter Brotzmann - Machine Gun (1968)

I hate tourists. Clueless about the local customs and generally obnoxious, the worst thing about tourists is that without them all but the most visited destinations eventually fade into obscurity. It’s fun to read braindead takes from someone who misses the point of a genre (or whatever else they’re talking about), but it does me make die a little inside. When I talk about something outside my area of knowledge, I fear becoming one of these tourists whose ignorance amuses or annoys locals, but definitely doesn’t enrich anyone’s perspective. Right now I fear misattributing the sounds different instruments make. I’d like to think I can gain solid understanding in a short time by listening to others talk about this type of music, as much as hearing the music itself. This review isn’t so much about this particular record as much as about my interpretation on what jazz fans say about improvisation. After all, if you don’t engage with those “in the know”, what’s the point of music discourse?

I’ve heard improvisation described as a sea of possibilities—form is the listener’s boat, something familiar, a structure, to hang on so they wouldn’t drown. The “free” part in free jazz is about jumping off that boat. With a rejection of structure, it can be hard to communicate emotions due to the lack of any signposts to guide the listener’s reaction. With my rudimentary knowledge, I am not convinced anyone has jumped off the boat here. There is no clear composition or form, and it’s not conventionally musical, but there are patterns and consistency, it’s definitely not chaos. The musician’s dynamics are consistent with each other, and there are clear rises and drops in intensity all throughout. Around 15:30 on “Machine Gun” you can hear a very discernible melody, which the saxophones oppose at first, but soon join it. It can’t be chaos, for the musicians are working together towards a goal, not following prewritten sheets, but signaling and adapting to each other at every moment. There is an underlying tension almost all throughout the pieces, with scream-like saxophones, sizzling winds and strings, and snare beats seeming to imitate burst fire or changing a bullet belt, almost like the octet attempts to simulate a battlefield in a very literal, non-abstract way.

There is no scene for any remotely experimental music in my country, and I’m a little sad knowing I’ll rarely get the chance to properly experience a performance like this, if at all, so I’d be stuck with second hand impressions. This is live music before everything else, you need to also watch the performance, see the live interaction between musicians and bizarre use of instruments. Listening to a recorded improvisation multiple times, like I did, misses the point, because every improvisation and every take on a piece is meant to be a unique experience that is only heard once. Or at least that’s what some jazz musicians have said.