Reedist Peter Brotzmann and guitarist Heather Lee has been one of Brotzmann's most current active collaborations, performing together for several years, here recorded beautifully in the studio for a 6-track LP and 10-track CD of sympathetic, emotional and articulate dialog from two musicians with an innate sense of timing and give and take borne from mutual experience.
"There is complexity in simplicity, and Sparrow Nights is Brotzmann and Leigh's most enduring record to date. A series of emotionally rich and boldly elucidated tonal and timbral exchanges played like compositions on pedal steel and reeds, the tracks (released as a six-track LP and ten- track CD) are cold-forged minimalist blues motifs dragged from instrumental laments. After three years playing together Brotzmann and Leigh's connection and understanding is by now both cerebral and deeply invested in the physical and sensory possibilities of their combined sound, while retaining a melancholic distance.
Within this duo there is fluidity - neither is the anchor - and these recordings sound with as much variety as the sea. At times Sparrow Nights carries the clarity and poeticism of still water and open horizon ("This Word Love"), and at others it contains the elemental and ferocious roar of white water breakers on black rocks ("This Time Around").
On their previous three live albums (Ears Are Filled With Wonder (2016), Sex Tape (2017), and Crowmoon (2018)), the duo have developed an intimate and intense language that manifests here as a focus on power and control, where figures blasted of unnecessary decoration are drawn from the shadows and smoke of collapse.
The studio setting also allows Brotzmann to bring a broader range of reeds than in live scenarios: where previously he has played primarily tenor, clarinet and tarogato with Leigh, here he delivers the heat of alto and the low pressure of bass saxophone and clarinet.
Brotzmann's duo with Leigh continues to trace a fresh new arc in his trajectory, and this release also falls at a time when Leigh releases Throne (EMEGO 257CD/LP), her most song-based record to date. Here as a studio duo they play a new-old blues for times of complexity, noise and chaos, continuing to redefine and re-sound possibilities for improvised music."-JLA
"Sparrow Nights offers the most comprehensive overview of the turbulent, chaotic and complex love relationship of German reeds titan Peter Brötzmann and American pedal steel guitar player Heather Leigh. Any one who have experienced this duo performs live or have listened to the duo previous three live recordings from the last three years must have sensed the strong, sensual essence of this collaboration, different from any other collaboration from Brötzmann. The duo with Leigh is one of the most active outfits of Brötzmann in recent years, often sharing the stage with other long-standing colleagues of Brötzmann - Japanese trumpeter Toshinori Kondo, guitarist Keiji Haino and drummer Sabu Toyozumi.
The live recordings, naturally, focused on the more furious, physical and even provocative sides of Brötzmann-Leigh collaboration, best captured on the explicit Sex Tape (Trost, 2017), Sparrow Nights allows both to take their intriguing relationship a step further. The studio environment enables Brötzmann to offer more sides of his strong personality, and Brötzmann has used wisely the generous studio time - spread over 78 minutes, in a six-track vinyl or ten-track disc - and explored more tonal and timbral nuances, adding the alto and bass saxophones and the b-flat, bass and contra-alto clarinets to his familiar tenor sax. Martin Siewert (of Radian) captured and mastered brilliantly at his studio in Vienna the complex dynamics of Brötzmann and Leigh. Brötzmann, as usual, did the artwork, more implicit this time than the cover of Sex Tape.
Brötzmann playing with Leigh has always suggested a gentle, touching side behind the rough and tough demeanor. The angry and aggressive blues ballads of previous live recordings have transformed now into more subtle and coherent expressions of a vulnerable and painful, but also protective and compassionate, relationship, reflecting his immense experience and one-of-a-kind wisdom. Brötzmann sounds softer than ever on the opening, straight ahead and emotional ballad "Summer Rain". Leigh deepens gently this seductive vein with minimalist, resonating lines on "The Word Love", answered by fragile, poetic cries of Brötzmann on the clarinet.
There is a strong sense of openness and fluidity in the Brötzmann and Leigh interplay, as in a relationship of a mature couple who have experienced few excruciating emotional storms. Even when the interaction becomes confrontational and melancholic as on "It's Almost Dark", dark and chaotic on the following title-piece and immediately afterwards openly brutal and bold on the "This Time Around", both still rely on their intimate kinship throughout these section.
"River of Sorrows" reaffirms that Brötzmann and Leigh reconcile, following the previous, heated confrontation, and is sweeter than expected. Both do not need more than few, simple gestures to re-establish their rare intimacy. Brötzmann alternates here between singing melodious lines on the bass clarinet and dense yet poetic cries while Leigh mirrors his emotional upheavals with raging waves of her own. "At First Sight" and "All Of Us" emphasize again and again the ecstatic, essential passion that cements this collaboration.
But, eventually, Brötzmann and Leigh are fully aware and have no illusions about the prospects of their relationship - the personal and the musical - as the aching, concluding ballad "My Empty Heart" and the intense "The Longer We're Apart" hint. Brötzmann and Leigh cry their hearts out - literally - him in his familiar ferocious mode and her in a more reserved manner. But both sound as have not said all there is to be said about this precious, stormy collaboration."-Eyal Hareuveni, The Free Jazz Collective