Peter Brötzmann
Peter Brötzmann (*1941 in Remscheid, Germany), together with Alexander von Schlippenbach, shaped the history of Germany’s influence on international improvised music more than anybody else. From the mid-1960's, the former assistant to Nam Jun Paik, saxophonist and visual artist Peter Brötzmann set impulses and, with the establishment of his own record label Brö, contributed decisively to paving the way for and promoting Free Music Production. Brötzmann's idiosyncratic style of playing gave rise to the term "brötzen" (to brötz); Bill Clinton named him as one of his saxophone references. He has played with all of the guests of his Brötzmann plus… ensemble time and time again, with some of them for decades. In recent years, his artistic work has been shown internationally in numerous publications and exhibitions, the most recent (2016) being a retrospective of his graphics at BIJMHUIS in Amsterdam.