Peter Brotzmann - Live in Copenhagen (2019)

Steve Swell - Trombone
Paal Nilssen-Love - Drums
Peter Brotzmann - Saxes & Clarinet

Recorded at Jazzhouse, Copenhagen, Denmark April 14, 2016

Peter and Paal have a 15-year history through various groups and know each other well. Peter and Steve had only met a couple of times in the past and now finally on stage together. Paal's first thought was that here's a trombonist who finally goes against Peter's melodies and lines. The interaction was immediate, spontaneous, hard, humble, respectful in the sense that one can also go against each other to make music. Trust was established right away and towards the end of the tour all three agreed there was more to be accomplished.

Peter Brotzmann is one of the most important and uncompromising figures in free jazz and has been at the forefront of developing a unique, European take on free improvisation since the 1960s.
Brotzmann first trained as a painter and was associated with Fluxus (Participating in various events and working as an assistant to Nam Jun Paik) before dissatisfaction with the art world moved his focus towards music. However he continued to paint and his instantly recognizable visual sensibility has produced some of our favorite LP sleeves as well as a number of gallery shows in recent years.
Self-taught on Clarinet and Saxophone, Brotzmann established himself as one of the most powerful and original players around, releasing a number of now highly sought after sides of musical invention including the epochal Machine Gun session in 1968.
Brotzmann's sound is one of the most distinctive, life-affirming and joyous in all music and he has performed with almost all of the major players of free music.

Steve Swell is one of the most adventurous and prolific members of the New York free-jazz community; his reputation, work ethic and commitment to excellence has kept him in the forefront of improvised music and a leading voice on his instrument for more than 20 years.
Born in Newark, New Jersey, Steve Swell has been an active member of the New York music community since 1975. He has established himself as a premiere leader and sideman of some of the most exciting groups ever assembled, giving performances at festivals, clubs and theaters in Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America. His composing talents have been recognized the world over. Swell s curiosity and need to create has led him to becoming a much heralded sideman affording him the opportunity to participate as an integral part of groups led by some of the most renown musicians in the jazz and improvised worlds.Swell has forty recordings as a leader or co-leader and is a featured artist on more than one hundred other releases.

Paal Nilssen-Love literally grew up in jazz. He was only five-years old back in 1979 when his parents opened the Stavanger Jazzclub, a venue they operated until 1986. A career in music came as a natural (and encouraged) choice. The young drummer began to work with saxophonist Frode Gjerstad and trumpeter Didrik Ingvaldsen in 1990, three years before he began formal jazz studies at Sound College and the Trondheim Music Conservatory. Being active in several bands at the same time has always been Paal's deliberate working method. He is constantly conscious about the projects he is in, as his participation in each and one of them is fully dedicated. Playing is not about getting from start to goal, but rather being in an everlasting process, a continuous movement where each new piece of music performed is a prolongation of the latest. Hence, keeping focused and concentrating all energy around what s happening there and then is of greatest importance - as is the freedom in the music, the ability of being free within the expression.