Featuring: Peter Brotzmann
Peter Brötzmann - tenor saxophone, tarogato
Sabu Toyozumi - drums
| 1. Spinal Column | 7:21 |
| 2. Toh-ro | 8:00 |
| 3. Yuh-ru Yuru | 5:52 |
| 4. Membrane System |
2:31 |
| 5. Triangle | 3:24 |
| 6. Valentine Chocolate | 4:29 |
| 7. Depth of Focus | 14:19 |
| 8. Peter & Sabu’s Points | 6:55 |
Ken Waxman - JAZZ WORD
Recorded in Tokyo, the selection details how Sabu Toyozumi (b. 1943), a first generation Japanese Free Jazzer, who has worked with numerous local, European and American creators during his 60 year career, intersected with German tenor saxophonist/tárogató player Peter Brötzmann (1941-2023), whose take-no-prisoners approach is musically fiercer than the bellicose activities of either these players’ countries prior and during Worl War II. Reflecting, but not copying the power and theatricism of Taiko drumming, Toyozumi confirms that style’s birth from jazz drumming and quickly marshals clip clops and clatters into a pseudo military pace that easily matches Brötzmann’s Teutonic altissimo runs and snarling overblowing. The saxophonist not only advances broken octave textures in all saxophone pitches, but at times, such as during “Triangle” and “Valentine Chocolate”, switches to woody tárogató whose gentling reed trills are ably met by the drummer’s carefully positioned palms-on-drum-top slaps and temple-bell-like plinks. Although the emotionalism implicit in Brötzmann’s solos sometimes causes him to momentarily turn away from the mikes, there’s no stopping his molten flow of inspiration. The session is completed during “Peter & Sabu’s Points” as Toyozumi sounds out a contrapuntal collection of paradiddles and smacks to meet the unbridled thrust of spetrofluctuation and multi-sectional screams from Brötzmann’s horn. Note though that throughout the extended “Depth of Focus” as irregular split tones and jagged bites issue from the saxophonist, the drummer emulates both western and eastern percussion with metallic cross pops interrupted at points with miniature gong resonations.
