Schwarzwaldfahrt

It started as an innocent jaunt: two good friends/collaborators, and many musical (and potentially musical) "implements", on a trip to the Bavaria's lush gem- The Black Forest…

(excerpted from Peter's liner notes): "There was a time Han Bennink and I, sometimes with Fred Van Hove, would drive through the Black Forest to get to places like the jazz clubs in Villingen and Loerrach, to play. At the same time during the end of sixties, beginning of seventies Joachim-Ernst Berendt, chief of the SWF was setting up a yearly meeting and driving through the forest Bennink and I had the idea of just going and playing in nature. We talked to Berendt about the idea and he provided us with recording equipment and an official letter allowing us to go and make noises, even in parts of the forest that were closed to the public. We took off for about a week at the end of the winter, still some snow on the peaks; it was grim, rainy, cloudy weather, and very cold... Wherever we thought it was nice, we stopped, set up and played a bit. Bennink hadn’t taken any drums with him, so he was playing on trees, stones, whatever was at hand. I had clarinets and saxophones, but it was much too cold to get them really working. Han had clarinets, sopranino, and some string instruments and toys.

Usually when things are done, they are done, and I start to think about the next project. So that music was out of my brains for some years. But when John Corbett played it at a festival in Athens, Georgia, a couple of years ago I was very surprised about the freshness of the music and the process we used to make it. We didn’t have any big message in our heads, but we just did it for the excitement of being there. We played on trees and in the water and with the birds and wind. We used what we had and what we found, and with all of that we made some music, which is in a way the real meaning of improvising. To work with what you have."