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Brian Olewnick
Milo Fine
Robert Meith
Martin Roeber
Reissue:
Clifford Allen
Scott Verrastro
Nic Jones
Reiner Kobe
Brian Olewnick
Brötzmann assembled a fine, multinational nonet for this date and the results, while falling short of his efforts with other mid-size bands, is still enjoyable. The title piece, which occupies the bulk of the recording, is indeed based around a horn motif imitating the sound of an air-raid siren. The score for the composition serves as the cover illustration and gives an idea of the work's structure. It's very roughly blocked out, using graphic notation, clock markings, and written instructions, as well as a minimal amount of standard notation, but clearly shows Brötzmann attempting to establish a loose framework for his band of improvisers. Alarm is divided into sections featuring small groups of players, sometimes on their own, other times backed up by the other musicians, but never in a traditional soloist's role. The attention is always focused on their interaction with each other or with the overall group sound. The piece ends with an odd little passage that sounds very much as though penned by Breuker and borrowing liberally from Ennio Morricone's theme from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Tenorist Frank Wright's "Jerry Sacem," a swinging, gutbucket blues, takes the band out in fun fashion, Wright offering fervent vocal exhortations over the cooking ensemble. Alarm may not be up to Machine Gun heights, but is enjoyable enough on it own merits.
from: All Music Guide
Milo Fine
The “founding father” of German Free Jazz, reed man Peter Brötzmann, heads yet another (albeit small) batch of releases from Free Music Production. His Alarm is, surprisingly, a disappointment. (“Surprisingly” because, since the beginning of his recording career in the late sixties Brötzmann’s documents have been very consistent in terms of energy and creativity.) 37:14 of the 40:52 album is given to the title piece (whose chart is printed on the cover), a graphic road map for Brötzmann & his 8 partners. Many of the solo segments, including the characteristic bombastic intensity of Schlippenbach and Wright, propelled (and how) by Miller/Moholo, as well as the sparser, more carefully sculpted outings from Kondo (buzzing like a bee), Tomlinson and Bauer are excellent, but the piece, as a whole, falters. It lacks the dangerous edge, raw power, and wholeness of, say, Brötzmann’s “Machine Gun.” The background riffs seem half-hearted and the musicians seem somewhat too cautious in their realization of the chart. Either more (or less) rehearsal could possibly have brought forth a more immediate and convincing interpretation. The closing “Jerry Sacem” appears to be irreverent filler from this session. The Wright-penned piece begins with a solidly swinging head and quickly evolves into mindless blues-shout babbling from Wright supported by Brötzmann’s most muscular soloing on the LP (his “sing-song” duet with Breuker on the title cut sounding/feeling like a throw-away) and a rhythm section disintegrating at a rapid pace. The listener is saved from further embarrassment by a quick fade.
from: Cadence Magazine # 11, November 1983
Robert Meith
Ein Fall für Abgebrühte, die auch im Sirenengeheul schwelgen können: im Feuer-Alarm mit drei jeweils 15 Sekunden langen Dauertönen, im Luftalarm mit einminütigem Jaulen, im ABC-Alarm mit den unterbrochenen Heultönen oder in der Entwarnung mit einminütigem Dauerton, der am Ende jäh abbricht. Genau diese Signale nahm der Wuppertaler Saxophonist Peter Brötzmann als Vorlage, um daraus ein intensives 37-Minuten-Stück für neun Koryphäen der internationalen Free-Jazz-Szene, darunter Pianist Alexander von Schlippenbach und Schlagzeuger Louis Moholo, zu stricken. Dabei geben die Bläser die Alarmzeichen erschreckend lebensecht wieder. Dazwischen existiert viel Raum für hitzige Kollektiv-, Teilkollektiv- und Solo-Improvisationen. Peter Brötzmanns rabiates Werk hat die Botschaft. Lasst euch nicht unterkriegen, auch wenn euch die Sirenen in den Ohren liegen.
aus: Audio # 2, 1984
Martin Roeber
„Alarm“ bestätigt beim oberflächlichen Zuhörer alle (falschen!) Vorurteile gegen den Wuppertaler Saxophonisten und Band-Leader. Gleichzeitig beweist sie aufs Neue dessen Qualitäten, die sich beim genauen Hinhören eigentlich jedem offenbaren müssten: Brötzmann ist nicht nur der wütende Teutone am Saxophon, der mit seinen freien Ausbrüchen alles niederbläst – Brötzmann ist zuallererst jemand, der den Blues bläst. Und er ist ein Musiker, der sensibel mit seinen Partnern (hier unter anderem Willem Breuker und Alexander von Schlippenbach) zu musizieren weiß.
aus: WZ/Westdeutsche Zeitung, 3. Dezember 1983
About the Atavistic reissue:
Clifford Allen
In the early ‘80s, Brötzmann began employing the South African rhythm team of bassist Harry Miller and drummer Louis Moholo, anchors of the Brotherhood of Breath and lynchpins of the UK’s kwela-jazz scene who provided a pliant circulation system for the saxophonist’s flights. On Alarm, the trio is augmented by pianist Alex von Schlippenbach, reedmen Willem Breuker and Frank Wright, trombonists Alan Tomlinson and Johannes Bauer and trumpeter Toshinori Kondo for a pan-continental meeting of minds. Like many such aggregations, it was sponsored by NDR and recorded for German radio broadcast. Apparently the concert itself was ironically cut short by a bomb scare, though the insert suggests other pieces performed at a different gig — mouth-watering for discographers and leading one to wonder if more tapes exist.
Most of the disc is made up of the title piece, its glissandi drawn from evacuation design scores. Like “Machine Gun,” the basis for the soundmasses of “Alarm” is militaristic response without the call; the former had Vietnam and the Left Bank as catalysts, the latter Reagan and nuclear proliferation. Yet in all its nervous overtones, the theme is almost regal in its display, though frantic and chaotic rejoinders arch out in Schlippenbach’s player-piano sound-blocks (mostly in dialogue with a callus-shredding Miller) and Wright’s pulpit-pounding runs. The music even has its representational moments, Kondo’s distorted chatter mimicking the distant, irrelevant and unintelligible calls of an emergency intercom. Of course, despite the size of the ensemble, there is ample room for individual soloists to stretch unaccompanied — Kondo and Bauer get a significant amount of solo chortle time, and the trio of saxophonists assembles a contrapuntal ditty after Tomlinson’s muscular solo (and in which the rest of the band soon takes part). Indeed, Alarm is quite colorfully stitched-together considering the minimal and dire auspices of its theme. A rejoicing in spite of (or maybe because of) the storm comes in the form of a brief rendition of Wright’s R&B groover “Jerry” with Wright preaching in full-vocal mode.
from: All About Jazz
Scott Verrastro
Originally recorded in 1981 and released in 1983 on FMP—still at the height of the Cold War—Alarm consists of what might be called a Brötzmann little big band interpreting a reaction to a nuclear emergency. The title track is a 37-minute tour de force, with the nine-piece ensemble (Brötzmann, Frank Wright and Willem Breuker on saxophones, Hannes Bauer and Alan Tomlinson on trombones, Toshinori Kondo on trumpet, Alexander von Schlippenbach on piano, Harry Miller on bass and Louis Moholo on drums) setting a sort of clarion call for nuclear disarmament. Saxophonist Brötzmann’s basic composition of a series of waves and straight tones allows the band to hurtle right out of the gate, with the brass howling in unison. After the initial “warning,” the group attacks with urgency, exploring shades of fear, paranoia, violence and confusion, always returning back to the sirenlike alarm.
Admittedly, Wright’s amateurish but impassioned approach (of course informed by Ayler) takes the forefront here, but the interaction between these musicians is at such a sophisticated and sympathetic level that it never seems like a free-for-all blowout. Particularly impressive are Bauer and Tomlinson’s trombone work and Schlippenbach’s probing piano. Surprisingly, there are moments where it sounds as if a Dixieland band just got off a spaceship and landed in the middle of a war. Like the best free jazz, “Alarm” runs the gamut of emotions, accurately reflecting life during an uncertain and precarious era. The album—and performance—closes with Wright’s “Jerry Sacem,” a short joyful piece with celebratory vocals and more New Orleans-style Dixieland meets 1940s R&B with the ever-present cacophony of the ’60s revolution.
Alarm matches the best of Brötzmann’s visceral, excessive-yet-exhilarating work (1968’s Machine Gun and 1969’s Nipples) but is also a heady concept that succeeds.
from: Jazz Times, January/Feruary 2007
Nic Jones
Any Brötzmann group utilizing material based upon the graphic instructions for a reaction to a nuclear emergency is never going to lack visceral intensity, and this music proves that with megawatts to spare.
If the Brötzmann octet that put together the epochal Machine Gun (FMP CD 24, 1968) might be said to have been playing in response to the political and social times, the same is true of this music, cognizant as it is with the fractious state of Cold War relations in the late 1970s and early 1980s; the degree of continuity between this music, recorded in 1981, and that on Machine Gun is notable.
The discontinuities between the two sets are pronounced enough, however. In the case of Alarm, the kinetic rhythm section of Alexander Von Schlippenbach, Harry Miller and Louis Moholo arguably does the most to give the music a very different kind of lift, and the innate understanding between Miller and Moholo in particular lends the music a level of intensity in addition to that of the often squalling horns.
If assertiveness can be viewed as an expression of moral outrage, then this music ultimately might be viewed as such expression. As a musician, Brötzmann has always been iconoclastic in the best sense of the term, even though his roots lay in the big-toned tenor saxes of the likes of Hawkins and Webster.
The resulting balance has made for the kind of multifaceted quality he hasn’t been given due credit for. This disc is a case in point, not simply because the music it contains shows an engagement with its time that is all too often missing from improvised music.
from: All About Jazz, September 5, 2006
Über die Atavistic Wiederveröffentlichung:
Reiner Kobe
Zwei Live-Mitschnitte, die dieser Tage wiederveröffentlicht worden sind (erstmals auf CD übrigens), werfen ein bemerkenswertes Schlaglicht auf den Peter Brötzmann der frühen 80er Jahre. Zum einen handelt es sich um eine Großbesetzung, wie sie der Wuppertaler Saxophonist immer wieder präsentierte, und, was man von ihm eher gewohnt ist, eine Trio-Formation. Beide haben es in sich, beide zeigen einen höchst kommunikativen und einfühlsamen Brötzmann, der mehr als bloß Solo-Ergüsse beherrscht.
Alarm Orchestra nannte sich die neunköpfige Peter Brötzmann Group (Willem Breuker/Frank Wright/Toshinori Kondo/Hannes Bauer/Alan Tomlinson/Alex Schlippenbach/Harry Miller/Louis Moholo), die anlässlich des 164. NDR Jazz Workshop 1981 zusammengestellt wurde. Mit einer Serie von Wellen und direkten Tönen, die in gewisser Weise wiederholt werden, sollte die atomare Bedrohung verdeutlich werden, wie Brötzmann in den heutigen Liner notes betont. Streng notierte Bläsersätze fransen im ersten Teil wiederholt solistisch aus, während im zweiten eher Platz bleibt für experimentelle Materialerkundung. Nach der 40-minütigen kontrollierten Improvisation musste der Saal schlagartig geräumt werden wegen eines Bombenalarms. Ob das alles inszeniert war oder nicht, „wissen wir heute besser als damals“, gibt Brötzmann raunend zu verstehen. Ein drittes Stück, das Frank Wright beisteuert, der sich dann munter afrikanischen Gesängen hingibt, wurde noch angefügt, um das Mysterium zu verstärken. Das mächtig losgehende, enorm swingende Stück, fest im Griff der respektablen Rhythmusgruppe Schlippenbach/Miller/Moholo, wird leider nach wenigen Minuten ausgeblendet (LP Länge). Unverständlich, warum Produzent John Corbett, der schon vielfach alte FMP-Platten aus dem Archiv hervorgeholt hat, sich nicht um die (vorhandenen) Master Tapes bemüht hat.
aus: Jazz Podium # 10, Oktober 2006
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