Mon, 16 May 2005
Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet, Athens, Georgia, May 13, 2005

Katherine and I went Athens to see the Peter Brotzmann Chicago Tentet. Our throb time. I'm sure we were the only father-daughter fans there. Hamid Drake wasn't didn't make it but there was still plenty of noise.
http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/news.php?id=5762

They played on the floor rather than the stage. Katherine and I practically sat in their laps with a 50 or 60 other brave souls.

They did everything and even rocked, in a sense, for a minute or two. Solos, duets, trios, quartets . . . and full bore, max volume tentets came without warning but once there, they made sense. When all ten were barrelling along our face, you couldn't really tap your foot to the beat but you have to move somehow.

It's still hard for me to imagine why the whole audience wouldn't walk out after 5 minutes. I'm sure many of them had no idea what they were getting into but nobody left that I noticed. At the end of the second set the crowd screamed with delight or something else. We didn't really know what it was but knew we'd been there and it would never happen again.

Before the show, we could hear them warming up, doing scales that sounded so normal.