The 2022 Jazzfest Berlin performance by revered, iconoclastic reedist Peter Brötzmann, Moroccan Gnaoua adept Majid Bekkas playing the two-stringed, camelskin-backed guembre, and Chicago-bred drummer Hamid Drake, documented as Catching Ghosts, is historic.
The 2022 Jazzfest Berlin performance by revered, iconoclastic reedist Peter Brötzmann, Moroccan Gnaoua adept Majid Bekkas playing the two-stringed, camelskin-backed guembri, and Chicago-bred drummer Hamid Drake, documented as Catching Ghosts, is historic.It’s a return to performance by 81-year-old Brötzmann after pandemic years affected his health, and recalls his prior Gnaouan encounters, like The Catch of a Ghost (2019) with guembri master Maâlem Moukhtar Gania, and a 1996 meet with Maâlem Mahmoud Gania at Austria’s Music Unlimited Festival (Hamid there both times). It also is a triumph of musical universalism, made in the moment without even one rehearsal, proving that “free” spontaneous interactions can transcend cultural lines, still deriving power from age-old traditions.Improvising on incantations from Gnaoua liturgy, Brötzmann,...
line upPeter Brötzmann / tenor saxophone & clarinet
Majid Bekkas / guembri & voice
Hamid Drake / drums & percussion
Recorded live at Berliner Festspiele / Jazzfest Berlin
Haus der Berliner Festspiele, 04.11.2022
Engineers: Sibylle Strobel, Martin Seelig & Benjamin Ihnow (editing)
Curated by Nadin Deventer
Mixed and mastered by Klaus Scheuermann
Produced by the artists
Cover art by Shoshu