*B·L·U·E   Z·O·O*

#1 Borah Bergman & Thomas Borgmann

#2 Bergman/Borgmann & Peter Brötzmann

#3 Bergman/Borgmann & Paul Lovens

#4 Bergman/Borgmann & Bobby Bradford

>The phenomenal Mr. Bergman...< (NEW YORK TIMES, 24.6.96)

>RIDE INTO THE BLUE was a great piece of work<
(John F. Szwed, Jazzpublizist, Prof. für Musik,Yale University)

>Last Years "Ride into the Blue" was a Landmark< (TIME OUT, NYC, 11.9.96)

>...It sounds great, with Bergman busting down walls, Borgmann evincing greatly emotive reeds works, and Brötzmann creating explosive, rocketed stirs as well as moving, bruised tones...<
(CADENCE Jazz-Magazine, October '97)

>By any reasonable standard, Borah Bergman is the equal or superior of any free-jazz pianist - excluding nobody. Name your criteria, no one's more intense, no one has more chops, no one possesses a greater abundance of ideas...<
(JAZZIZ, USA, November '97)

>Two German horn, so well-suited with similar tempestuos tempers and love of lingering melodies, though bringing to the table such different basic sound with Thomas Borgmann's slicker tone and Peter Brötzmann's timbre of tears (read: tearfull or torn, either way). Together, the two saxofonists sing soulful, sometimes lemonball-sour harmonies. American pianist Borah Bergman lays down rumbling, bubbling ostinati, building tension and storing power for moments that call on him to peal off burning or luminous lines. He's well matched with the roustabout romantic reedmen, given his prediliction for hearty melody and fervid harmony...<
(John Corbett, Chicago, September '95)

>Es sind sensible Erkundungen und wuchtige Phantasien in einem neuen Territorium...<
(Fredi Bosshard, WOCHENZEITUNG; Zürich Juni '96)

>...diese drei stehen mit dem was sie machen - und das man etikettenmäßig"Free Jazz" nennt, ganz einfach in einem weit entfernten Bereich, in dem es eben Konventionen, Harmonie, Schönklang und andere ähnliche Delikatessen längst nicht mehr gibt. Dafür gibt es jede Menge Wahrheit, radikal und oft brutal. Eine Wahrheit die nicht aus dem Intellekt kommt, eine nicht-intellektuelle Musik, die mit ritueller Trance oder Schamanismus am ehesten bezeichnet werden kann...<
Tilman Hagen (Badische Zeitung,11.12.96)

>...Sie könnten die Kammermusik neu erfinden - auf Basis unverwüstlicher Free-Jazz-Energie. (Diese Musik macht euphorisch.) Mit anderen Worten eine beängstigend kompakte Musik...<
(JAZZTHETIK; 7/8 '97)

>...seine von geballter Konzentration getragenen Impulse spinnen die beiden Bläser ins Netz, ohne sie zu binden. die Strukturen, die er setzt, bleiben auch dann im Vordergrund, wenn man ihn überhaupt nicht hört, weil die Bläser sich gerade ekstatischen Eruptionen hingeben oder eine ihrer Schmuse-Nummern zelebrieren. Melodien klingen an, mal verfremdet, mal nostalgisch - aber niemals so, daß man überm Erinnern das Zuhören vergißt...<
(FRANKFURTER RUNDSCHAU; 14.12.96)

>...die drei Musiker waren wie entfesselt. Borah Bergman am piano und Thomas Borgmann mit seinem Tenorsaxofon spielten sich in ihren Improvisationen musikalisch die Bälle zu, und der agile Brötzmann keilte mit tollen Kontras am Alt dazwischen...Das 'Monster der linken Hand' spielte so sauber, daß er sich selbst dabei in den Hintergrund drängte... Die drei hatten einen wahrhaft tollen Tag erwischt. Es stimmte einfach alles. Das Publikum war so begeistert, daß es bereits zur Pause dem Trio frenetisch Beifall spendete.<
(Rheinische Post, 10.12.96)

>RIDE INTO THE BLUE fegte wie ein Wirbelwind durch die Brötzinger Jazzkneipe, ließ den Boden erbeben und brauste durchs Ohr...In der Wildheit improvisierter Teile kamen immer wieder "Gespräche" zustande, die das Publikum durchaus nachvollziehen konnte. Der Beifall klang begeistert bis frenetisch.<
(Pforzheimer Bote, 11.12.96)

>...Das fehlende Schlagzeug fällt nicht auf, Pianist Borah Bergman ist der rote Faden. Trokene, zielgerichtete Perkussivität, fast schon harmonischer Breitwandsound, ständig fordernde Dynamik... Borgmann/Brötzmann laufen schon blau-rot an, wenn sie das scheinbar ganz andere spielen: das Zarte und Leise, das nicht anders als beschädigt und wackelig gespielt werden kann (sonst wär's eklig)...Kein fetischischtischer Schau-mal-her-Authentizismus, sondern in seiner unerbittlichen Aneignung von verdinglichten Gefühls- und Erlebnissphären notwendige Überforderung. Heraklit '95: Alles fließt über.<
(SPEX; Dezember '95)

>Blue Zoo- mit Borgmann, Bergman und Paul Lovens - überzeugte mit einem differenzierten Zusammenspiel, setzte Spannungsbögen, die von Minimal-Music Elementen bis zu sehr kraftvollen Höhepunkten führten. Borgmann "sprach" förmlich auf dem Saxophon, ein sehr erdiger Sound, der sich, von Piano-clustern aufgepeitscht, bis zum Schreien steigerte.<
(Berliner Zeitung, Juni’98)

Bergman/Borgmann/Brötzmann - Blue Zoo (Konnex)

(ab) Je älter Peter Brötzmann wird, umso öfter werden Auftritte dokumentiert, auf denen er nicht die Saxophon-spielende 'Machine Gun' ist, sondern ein zart aufspielender Mitmusiker. Seine Bewunderung für so traditionelle MusikerInnen wie Sidney Bechet, Coleman Hawkins und Billie Holiday wird immer offensichtlicher. So auch auf "Blue Zoo", dem Mitschnitt des Konzertes in der Roten Fabrik in Zürich vom Juni letzten Jahres. Gemeinsam mit Saxophonist Thomas Borgmann, mit dem er auch in "Ruf der Heimat" zusammenspielt, und Pianist Borah Bergman spielten sie allerfeinsten Free Jazz. Die Musik scheint, wie ein brodelnder Vulkan, immer kurz vor dem Ausbruch zu stehen. Die Spannung zwischen den Dreien ist oft schier unerträglich. Doch die befreiende, erwartete Eruption kommt nicht in einer alles zerstörenden Explosion. Stattdessen hören sie einfach auf wenn keine Spannungsteigerung mehr möglich ist. Dabei entwickeln sie ihre Gedanken in oft langen Duo-Passagen mit einer klaren Trennung von musikalischem Vorder- und Hindergrund.

Borah Bergman Biography   January 1999

IIn an age when Cecil Taylor still bestrides the world of jazz (or avant-garde, if you prefer) piano like a colossus, pushing seventy but still creating mammoth, tumultuous energy pieces . . . in an age when Marilyn Crispell and Irene Schweizer astound with the pure force of their pianistics . . . in an age populated by other overlooked keyboard giants including Bobby Few, Michael Jefry Stevens, Matthew Shipp, and David Rosenboom . . . only Borah Bergman's discs come with the note that he "is heard on this record in unaccompanied piano solos. No use is made of multitracking, overdubbing or tape speeding on any selections."

The note is needed because Bergman's left hand is so well-developed - and he deploys it so independently of his right - that his music is often astounding for its parallel intricacy. Yet he is by no means a mere stunt performer. The piano is, in his words, a "miniature orchestra" whereon the two hands engage in a dialogue. "This dialogue can lead, when desired, to polyphony, each hand seeming to have a life of its own. Two things are happening at the same time, related and unrelated, harmonious and conflicting, the degree of synthesis depending on the choices made. Developing the left hand to be the equal of the right enabled me to restructure the piano and employ interplay with its dialogue and polyphony. I've never considered it as an end in itself, but just my own way of making new music for the piano."

He is an "energy player" like Taylor and Crispell, with the ability to work in miniature as well, and to create the tiny and delicate melodic webs. "I found," Bergman explains, "that practicing rhythms such as 13:8, 11:8, 7:5, 8:5, 7:4, 5:4, 15:8, 9:5 have aided my ballad playing, getting a floating feeling and a sense of suspension." He is a surpassingly imaginative improviser, yet according to Musica Jazz's Arrigo Polillo, "his music is improvised only up to a point, because the improvisation fits into a plan that is clear in the mind of the pianist/composer before his extraordinarily agile fingers touch the keyboard."

Yet this musical maelstrom, this whirlwind of melodic shards and driving power, springs from the unlikeliest of sources. Bergman says, "Probably the two most significant influences were Bud Powell and Lennie Tristano." Also, "my first introduction was Louis Armstrong. Then Billie Holiday and Lester Young. I could play blues before I learned harmony. However my most important background in jazz is bebop. I can't forget seeing and hearing Charlie Parker and Bud Powell. As a teenager I played the clarinet. I still remember the clarinet solos on different versions of Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo." In a way my left hand relates to my clarinet feel - and to my horn concept in general." And finally: "I feel I am myself. I have a right to be myself."

and another one:

Borah Bergman

Biography

      Borah Bergman (born December 13, 1933 in Brooklyn, NY) is one of the most signleminded and unique pianists in the history of jazz.  Often compared to Cecil Taylor, but mor for lack of any closer analogy than for any particular similarities of style, Bergman himself credits Lennie Tristano and Bud Powell as his main pianistic influences (also noting stride and Thelonious Monk).  By consciously emphasizing equality between his left and right hands, as epitomized by frequent cross-handed playing, he has created a style which allows him to improvise differntly from any other pianist.  Working sporadically as a solo artist in the early part of his recording career, Bergman found acclaim (and was recorded more frequently) when he began playing duos, and has recently expanded to trio performances, though not in the typical jazz trio instrumentation of piano, bass and drums.

      Bergman didn't play piano until he was in his twenties, having started out on clarinet as a child.  Determined to create a new way of playing -- since, as he put it when interviewed by critic Francis Davis, "I knew there was no point in sounding almost as good as Bud Powell" -- he spent several years teaching his left hand to be able to play everthing his right could play.  For a while, this took the form of compositions and improvisations entirely for the left hand.  He was also inspired by the example of John Coltrane's "Chasin' the Trane" to build style of great endurance, and by the music of Ornette Coleman to have that style reflect a greater equality of its parts.  Bergman has credited his parent's left-wing beliefs for these ideas of equality inherent in his even-haded, ambidextrous approach, and his come-what-may doggedness similarly reflects their influence.

      In the years through which Bergman was less frequently recorded, he supported himself by teaching.  His determination has served him well throughout a career in which his devotion to a personalized, idiosyncratic style has drawn fierce antagonism (including repeated mockery from a well-known critic).  By now, however, the praise of many other critics has long overwhelmed the voices of doubt.  Now a popular collaborator on the festival circuit and a respected recording artist whose work is regularly hailed for its originality, Bergman continues to forge a new pianistic path.

Selected Discography

Borah Bergman/Oliver Lake: A New Organization (SN121322, 1999)

Borah Bergman/Peter Brötzmann/Andrew Cyrille: Exhilaration (SN 121330, 1997)

Borah Bergman/Peter Brötzmann/Anthony Braxton: Eight By Three (Mixtery) 1997

Borah Bergman/Hamid Drake:
Reflections on Ornette Coleman and the Stone House (Soul Note 121280) 1999

Borah Bergman/Roscoe Mitchell/Thomas Buckner: First Meeting (Knitting Factory Works) 1995

Borah Bergman/Thomas Borgmann/Peter Brötzmann: BLUE ZOO (Konnex) 1996

Borah Bergman/Thomas Borgmann/Peter Brötzmann: Ride Into the Blue (Konnex) 1995

Borah Bergman/Evan Parker: The Fire Tale (Soul Note 121252) 1999

Borah Bergman/Andrew Cyrille: The Human Factor (Soul Note 121212) 1993

Thomas Chapin & Borah Bergman: Inversions (Muworks) 1992

Upside Down Visions (Soul Note 121080) 1985

A New Frontier (Soul Note 121030) 1983

"Webs and Whirpools' must be one of the most purely astonishing piano performance of all time."

****--The Penguin Guide to Jazz   Burst of Joy (Chiaroscuro)  Discovery (Chiaroscuro)