I was at a litle club in Vienna yesterday, called Blue Tomato. It seems to be a place offering lots of free improvised music. This evening a band called Sonore were playing, a trio with three reed-players: Peter Brötzmann, Ken Vandermark and Mats Gustafsson. Those of you that know a thing or two about free improvised music, recognise this as quite a line-up!

It was really cool to see Peter Brötzman live, talk about lively 66-yearold! I probably would have been completely finished after playing one of their pieces, it’s amazing that he and the others actually make 2 whole sets. Crazy!

The music was really nice, they changed their group-sound in a lovely way by switching instruments, and, as I recognized it, roles between the numbers.

The highlight for me was in 2nd set, when Brötzmann played a fantasticly nice introduction on alto sax, that eventually lead to a kind of song accompanied by sweet sounds and rhytms from Vandermark and Gustavsson. If I would have heard that on record, I would never have thought that he played alto sax. I have never heard anyone getting a sound like that out of an alto, it sounded like eight altos at the same time or something.

All three of them are truely fantastic improvisers and sound artists, and I advice everyone having the chance to hear this group or one of these musicians to take it. It’s an experience!