Avant-garde Jazz @ Zendai Museum of Modern Art

Avant-garde Jazz
An East-meets-west Avant-garde Jazz concert. The German Jazz-Star Peter Brötzmann and his long-term drum partner Michael Wertmueller from Switzerland are playing together with the Chinese traditional instrument player Xu Fengxia. This is Peter Brötzmann's first performance in China. He is among the most important European free jazz musicians, often called the "Father of improv". His former band "Globe Village" became a milestone in the history of improvising Jazz music. The concert starts 8pm. Tickets 80rmb, 50rmb for students (including one free drink). www.zendaiart.com

"Peter Brötzmann, well-deserves "father of improv", instead of a Jazz musician. Jazz or not, as Brötzmann himself put it, only represents love and esteem for the Jazz instruments. It is the torrential and incendiary sound from his instruments that emancipates the music itself.

Born in Germany, in the past 40 years, he has played with countless musicians of various genres. For him, music is the thing played by a group of fellows. Without any professional musical training, Brötzmann mastered clarinet and saxophone himself.

As an art student, Brötzmann joined the Fluxus movement, and he created works of art with Nam June Paik, John Cagy and other members of the group in early 1960s. After that, He met his first musical partner, bassist Peter Kowald, Together with drummer Sven-Ake Johansson, they formed a free Jazz Trio. The band successfully expands into Globe Village led by Brötzmann, which later became a milestone in the history of improvising Jazz music.

Anthony Braxton, Evan Parker and some other Jazz musicians joined in the band successively. Following the self-production of his first two LPs, For Adolphe Sax and Machine Gun for his private label, BRÖ, and a number of concert recordings with different sized groups, Brötzmann worked with Jost Gebers and started the FMP label. He also began to work more regularly with Dutch musicians, forming a trio briefly with Willem Breuker and Han Bennink before the long-lasting group with Han Bennink and Fred Van Hove.
In the middle of 1980s, Brötzmann extended his interests to noise and heavy metal music, and he once cooperated with Keiji Haino. He remains active in touring around the world frequently. His performance with the Chicago Tentet reached an extremely high degree of excellence. Besides, Brötzmann never gave up his art ideal, and he designed most of the covers of his records.

Michael Wertmuller, drummer and composer born in Switzerland and now living in Berlin, definitely impresses the audience with his free spiritual performance. Wertmuller is a virtuoso, also a wild drummer, who merges the body and mind into the beating. Literary texts underlie several of his pieces: some from Nietzsche and Bacon.

On the other hand, he belongs to composers of technique school, appeal to mathematical proportion and computer control to treat the music. Wertmuller pursues strength of sound, high frequency and how to constitute the elaborate structure of the intense strength. In his most distinguished works Die Zeit. Eine Gebrauchsanweisung (time, a user's manual), he made fifteen musicians read the notes from a screen upon and controlled by a central computer that works like a fifteen-armed conductor and indicates the fifteen different tempi.

Wertmuller, settled in the computer world and in extremely technological procedures, has deep feelings for traditional Jazz as a free Jazz drummer. He reinterprets conventional Jazz music with reference to the computer treatment of modern music. In 1991, as the drummer in trio experimental Jazz band, Wertmuller started to launch discs with a blended style of Jazz, hardcore noise and heavy metal.

After that, Wertmuller published several records with Peter Brötzmann, as well as some records of his composed music, including the famous Die Zeit. Eine Gebrauchsanweisung. Wertmuller is also a fixed partner in Peter¡¯s world tour.


Xu Fengxia was born in Shanghai and started learning zither since seven. Graduating from Shanghai Conservatory of Music, she plays Chinese GuQin, SanXian and LiuQin as well as zither. She was soloist of Shanghai Orchestra for Traditional Chinese Music in mid 1980s, as well as the bass of the first lady rock band in Shanghai.

In 1988, Fengxia co-played with the European free Jazz musician for the first time in Shanghai. Afterwards, she moved to Germany, then established Gufeng band with three other Chinese traditional musicians. She is devoted to mixing traditional Chinese music instrument and melody with free Jazz.

In the year of 1995, she met with the bass player of Global Village led by Brötzmann, Peter Kowald and made European tour with Peter. She gained fame in the filed of free Jazz after the tour. It is Fengxia who infuses the clear, light, and delicate essence of Chinese traditional music into the free Jazz, which proves to be a new montage to improvising performance.


Reduced ticket price for Q5 members 50rmb. Please show your card when you purchase the ticket at the door.

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