Catching Ghosts

The 2022 Jazzfest Berlin performance by revered iconoclastic reedist Peter Brötzmann, Moroccan Gnaoua adept Majid Bekkas (playing the two-stringed, camelskin-backed guembri), and Chicago-bred drummer Hamid Drake, documented as 'Catching Ghosts', is historic. It's a return to performance from 81-year-old Brötzmann after Pandemic years affected his health, recalling his prior Gnaouan encounters, like 'The Catch of a Ghost' with guembri master Maâlem Moukhtar Gania, and a 1996 meet with Maâlem Mahmoud Gania at Austria's Music Unlimited Festival (Hamid there both times). It also is a triumph of musical universalism, made in the moment without even one rehearsal, proving that 'free' spontaneous interactions can transcend cultural lines, still deriving power from age-old traditions.