track listing
filters l signals l airtube

Bertrand Denzler tenor saxophone

Recorded by Christophe Hauser on february 21st, 2010

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Explorer les possibilités du saxophone ténor et plus précisèment des vibrations du tube en laiton de l'instrument par le biais d'un souffle particulier, voila ce qui semble habiter Bertrand Denzler depuis quelques temps. Joué sans anche, le titre Airtube est d'ailleurs l'illustration parfaite de cette quête de notre scientifique du son. Bertrand Denzler nous avait déjà enchanté avec son jeu singulier et l'exploration des facettes du saxophone ténor lors de la sortie en 2005 du disque du Trio Sowari toujours chez Potlatch aux côtés de Phil Durrant et Burkhard Beins.
Altération, répétition, vibration, mini drone... autant d'attaques et de variations qui apportent les agréments nécessaires à un tel exercice mono instrumental. Une prouesse diront certains.
Bertrand Denzler expose un programme d'action, une position. Avec ce disque, il s'inscrit ostensiblement dans la lignée de ceux qui militent pour modifier et étendre les modes de jeu des instruments dits traditionnels.
Sonhors l octobre 2011

Pourquoi, dès qu'un instrumentiste du calibre de Bertrand Denzler se mêle d'enregistrer en solo, cela prend-il aussitôt des allures d'évènement ? D'abord, sans être tout à fait rare, on ne peut pas dire que le saxophoniste nous inonde sous le flot de ses productions, préférant généralement l'anonymat du collectif à l’éclat individuel. Ensuite, Bertrand n'est plus ce que l'on peut appeler un jeune musicien et, plutôt que de livrer une banale carte de visite destinée à impressionner les programmateurs, il y a toutes les chances pour qu'il nous offre une œuvre mûrement réfléchie, une trace indispensable à laquelle nous puissions nous référer si l'envie nous prend, un jour, de considérer l'ensemble de son expérience. Enfin, depuis le temps que son ténor fait partie intégrante de rassemblements aussi intelligents qu'Hubbub, le Trio Sowari ou le Quatuor de Saxophones, le désir nous est venu, peu à peu, d'isoler cette voix singulière de ses contextes coutumiers et de l'entendre seule, comme on tire un fil spécifique d'une trame générale pour mieux en apprécier la texture originale.
L'image du fil correspond d'ailleurs assez bien à la démarche perpétrée dans cet album sans concession. Inexorablement, le saxophoniste tire du silence des sons dont il semble évaluer la solidité, observer le comportement sur la durée, analyser les modes vibratoires et leur diffusion dans l'espace. Les notes émises vivent un temps avant de s'éteindre naturellement et sans jamais croiser ou proposer l'amorce d'une mélodie ni le risque d'un accord, extraites du métal avec la précision
de segments tangibles plus ou moins longs, aigus ou graves, frémissants ou imperturbables. Puis, avec la patience et la méticulosité d'un ouvrier spécialisé, le ténor les aligne les unes à côté des autres et les organise en boisseaux différents destinés à des usages divers dont émanent, cependant, des harmoniques immatérielles, conséquences immédiates du frottement de deux faisceaux distincts.
Et tout cela est tout simplement merveilleux de logique et d'évidence, comme un travail qu'il fallait accomplir et que l'on est heureux d'avoir mené à bien. Ainsi décomposés, les fragments sonores forment un alphabet dont on pourrait user si les signes eux-mêmes ne suffisaient à notre bonheur au point d'en rendre superflus le langage et ses contradictions intrinsèques. De fait, au cours de la dernière plage justement intitulée Airtube, Bertrand Denzler choisira de se taire, laissant à peine quelques lambeaux de souffle se perdre au creux de l'instrument.
Dans ce très étonnant album, témoin d'une maturité insistante, il aura, en quelque sorte, fait le point sur l’essentiel d'un son qu'il poursuit depuis longtemps à travers les divers contextes auxquels il continue de participer. Et nous aura, par là même, conviés à un troublant voyage au centre de la matière première décontextualisée.
Joël Pagier l Improjazz l Juillet 2011

Un seul son, tenu pendant des durées variables, interrompu de silences, avec des sortes de clapotis à l'intérieur, irréguliers eux aussi, suffit à fasciner et faire se lever un monde musical. Le son de l'instrument, et des accidents qui ne sont pas liés à une maîtrise technique : la question est de rendre l'instrument transparent, comme sur la pochette. Doué d'assez d'existence pour faire apparaître la musique, mais transparent, quand bien même un autre instrument mènerait à une autre musique.
En réduisant la quantité d'événements musicaux, Bertrand Denzler s'assure qu'aucun modèle préexistant ne viendra s'imposer. Bien sûr au fur et à mesure du morceau d'autres événements entrent en jeu. Ce qui arrive à l'instrument n'a pas d'importance, c'est ce qui arrive à la musique qui compte, et Bertrand Denzler la traite bien, amoureusement.
Un autre saxophoniste avait montré un ténor sur la pochette d'un disque, Love at first sight. La musique était bien différente et le titre sans doute pas de Rollins mais la rencontre me fait penser qu'entre le choc éprouvé aux premières écoutes du colosse et ce qui se passe ici, une comparaison pourrait se faire dans ce que les Américains appelleraient "dedication". Les deux musiciens soufflent la tempête, chacun à sa façon et elles n'ont rien en commun.
Le second et le troisième morceau apportent d'autres sons mais l'approche reste la même. Pas expérimentale, raisonnée et rêvée, logique et introuvable. Les sons, même pas vraiment étranges, de Denzler font surgir des virtuosités rêvées, latentes dans le trait de plume, indissociable de l'instrument qui le reçoit et le produit. L'alliance les produit, ainsi que l'énergie considérable de chaque son, bien qu'ils soient joués à relativement faible volume. Denzler suit sans hâte le temps, avec une justesse infaillible (trop dithyrambique ? des disques comme celui là ne vous tombent pas tous les jours de la boîte aux lettres). C'est une présence parfaite, une musique tragique et consolante, dansante et mélancolique, gorgée d'émotions en boutons.
Noël Tachetl Improjazz l Juillet 2011

A l'instar des labels Creative Sources, Another Timbre ou Erstwhile, Potlatch se distingue par ses choix esthétiques radicaux mais toujours créatifs et variés. En rajoutant un énième disque à l'histoire déjà longue et riche du saxophone solo, on a pourtant encore affaire à quelque de nouveau, voire d'inouï. Ces trois pièces de Denzler (Trio Sowari, Hubbub) présentent en effet une facette nouvelle, sensible et organique du saxophone tenor.
Il y a tout d'abord cette première fois minimaliste, Filters, où Denzler explore le timbre d'une note et la fait vivre, en explore chaque recoin: altération non-tempérée par les clés, enrichissement par les multiphoniques, etc. Puis, Signals, plus ambitieux, qui s'attaque à faire vivre chaque potentialité du saxophone: suite de très courtes phrases où l'attaque est chaque fois mise à l'honneur, notamment grâce au silence ou au timbre contrasté qui la précède. Cette pièce met plus en avant le saxophone, son timbre et ses techniques que la précédente, cette dernière étant plus attachée à ne faire vivre qu'un son, qu'une note. Ceci dit, Signals n'est pas qu'un exercice de style, ni une démonstration de virtuosité, toutes ces phrases forment une structure qui apparaît au fur et à mesure de la pièce, chaque cellule forme un relief avec la précédente et la suivante, puis revient sans que l'on saisisse vraiment le principe de composition, mais la répétition n'est jamais inopportune, et paraît toujours cohérente. Airtube, pièce qui est certainement la plus radicale et la plus extrême, se concentre sur le souffle de Denzler passé au crible d'un saxophone sans bec. Et c'est à ce moment que nous pouvons saisir son intention: faire corps avec l'instrument, brasser sans distinction le mécanique et l'organique, la technique et la vie, le silence et le son.
Tenor explore de manière organique, précise et rationnelle les potentialités du saxophone, mais l'exploration en tant que telle n'est pas le but. Cette exploration sert trois compositions riches et créatives autant servies par le corps de l'instrument que par le corps de Denzler, par son intelligence autant que par l'intelligence sonore et mécanique du ténor. On est proche de la musique minimale et réductionniste certes, mais il y a quelque chose de plus émotif et sensible dans le jeu de Denzler, et je crois que c'est dû au fait que les techniques étendues ne sont pas une fin en elle-même, que le timbre est subordonné à une structure plus profonde en relation avec le corps même de l'instrumentiste. Cette absence d'autonomie du timbre rend ces trois pièces moins abstraites que ce à quoi nous sommes habitués, la force de Denzler réside dans cette chaleur qui se dégage lentement de ce triptyque dont on ne saisit pas tout de suite la démarche, mais dont le sens se profile au fur et à mesure grâce à la cohérence et à la précision de chaque idée comme de chaque structure générée. Une merveille!
Julien Héraud l Improv Sphere l Mars 2011

Il y a une longue histoire d’amour entre le label Potlatch et le saxophone. Il faut se souvenir qu’un des disques les plus ardus et les plus passionnants du label fut Anatomie des Clés de Michel Doneda, une exploration des possibilités du saxophone soprano. Stéphane Rives avec Fibres nous avait ensuite révélé d’autres facettes de cet instrument, dans un registre plus minimaliste. Le label publie en ce début d’année un disque solo de saxophone ténor signé Bertrand Denzler. Celui-ci est d’ailleurs un habitué du label où il apparait dans diverses formations.
Une question me taraude à l’écoute de cet opus : musique improvisée ou préméditée ? Peut-être un peu des deux, les trois pièces semblant obéir à des règles plus ou moins explicites.
Filters débute par une note tenue, répétée à plusieurs reprises avant que de subtiles altérations apparaissent, deviennent de plus en plus évidentes, et se surajoutent les unes aux autres. Les puristes me pardonneront peut-être (ou me traiteront de fou ou d’ignorant – peu importe) si je dis que l’architecture (y en a-t-il vraiment une ? Est-ce un leurre ?) de cette pièce me fait penser à un morceau d’Autechre dépecé et étiré à l’infini.
Signals explore les registres graves et abrasifs de l’instrument. Betrand Denzler y crée de curieuses polyphonies qui nous rappellent que le phénomène acoustique est fondamentalement une histoire de vibrations. Petit à petit, il nous emmène dans les registres aigus qui alternent avec des graves discrets.
Avec Airtube, dont le titre est on ne peut plus explicite, on entre dans le cœur du saxophone ténor. Bertrand Denzler se débarrasse de son anche et utilise les capacités résonnantes du tube de laiton. Et l’on découvre que celui-ci peut devenir un instrument à percussion ou prolonger l’organe respiratoire ainsi que la bouche de l’instrumentiste.
Le débat n’est donc pas évident à trancher entre préméditation et improvisation. Y a-t-il d’ailleurs un intérêt de le trancher ? Ce disque est avant tout une radiographie, une exploration aux rayons X de l’instrument. Rarement un titre et une pochette n’auront aussi bien décrit la musique qu’ils accompagnent.
Freesilence's blog l Février 2011

Déjà fort bien représenté dans la collection Potlatch (avec les deux disques du Trio Sowari ou les Propagations d’un quatuor de saxophonistes de pointe), Bertrand Denzler s’expose aujourd’hui en solo, abouché au ténor qu’on lui connaît – chez Hubbub par exemple…
L’enregistrement (de février 2010) qu’il offre déplie ses pièces en un triptyque finement agencé dont la cohérence, le trajet, ne s’appréhendent qu’une fois le dernier son émis ; le premier volet, en gestes posés, pousse une note, sirène de rite maritime, colonne d’air sculptée par les tampons du sax – en deçà de la portion du tube que les opercules supérieurs ont obturée – comme les mains le feraient autour d’un theremin : passé à tous les « filtres », à tous les tamis, le son libère de rêches harmoniques.
Obstinée mais passionnante, analytique mais d’une certaine sensualité, la démarche de fission sonore prévaut également dans la pièce suivante ; cellules, textures, réitérées et corrodées, fascinent par leur modelé, leur présence, leur feuilleté. Le troisième mouvement ébranle ce corps sonore qu’on nomme saxophone, le fait tressaillir et en dresse une carte animée, splendidement dynamique. Générateur explosible, le ténor ?! Dense, l’air !
Guillaume Tarche l Le son du grisli l Janvier 2011

Bertrand Denzler, anime régulièrement un trio du nom de Sowari, aux côtés d’un Phil Durrant posté derrière son ordinateur et d’un Burkhard Beins concentré sur ses percussions, ou un quintette appelé Hubbub qui l’associe au pianiste Frédéric Blondy, au saxophoniste (alto) Jean-Luc Guionnet, au guitariste Jean-Sébastien Mariage et au batteur Edward Perraud. A chaque fois ou presque, naissent de ces rencontres des morceaux d’expérimentations à la dérive amassant sur leur passage des trouvailles de gestes temporisés. Cette fois seul sur Tenor, Denzler s’adonne lui aussi à des jeux de construction : répétant d’abord une note-trampoline sous l’effet de laquelle le musicien prend de la hauteur et décide de figures avant que la chute n’offre d’autres alternatives sonores. Une note que Denzler apprivoise et sur laquelle il insiste avant de la laisser pour organiser autrement son discours. D’aigus en graves et de souffles aphones en bruits de mécanique, Denzler conçoit des projectiles singuliers, secs ou pris de tremblements, prêts à défendre une esthétique aussi efficiente qu’un chapelet de notes bien arrangées.
Guillaume Belhomme l Mouvement l Janvier 2011

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Solo instrumental records can be difficult to live with, but they’re often worth the effort. At their best, they give us windows into the deep, lifelong relationships many performers develop with their chosen instrument over years of multi-hour practice sessions, listening, experimenting, playing with ensembles of all kinds. They can share intimacies simply impossible through performances in group settings, private experiences that many musicians have in the walls of their practice rooms and studios that even their closest musical collaborators might never hear.
And I must admit that I’m especially partial to solo sax albums. Though my “years of shedding” experiences have all been with guitars and the voice, I often feel like I was meant to play the saxophone. I love the “normal” voice of saxes, especially altos and tenors. I love the huge range in timbre that is possible, the ease of wicked vibrato, the many kinds of scale and arpeggio runs that lend themselves to nimble sheets of notes, the clarity of articulation possible, and on and on. And it’s a great instrument for extended techniques: growl tones, slap tongues, multiphonics, alternate fingerings, altissimo, reed biting—I love it all. Anthony Braxton’s For Alto is an all-time favorite album of mine, and I’ve been delighted to know the solo work of many others: Zorn, Abe, Lacy, Parker, Butcher, and so on. So I was delighted to receive Bertrand Denzler’s Tenor for review. I was not familiar with Denzler’s work before this disc, but I’ll definitely be looking for more.
Tenor is made of three long tracks that were recorded on one day (and it sounds like they’re probably all part of one long improvisation or composition broken into three sections for tracking convenience). Presumably this is a studio recording, with close micing in a small space. There are no effects used here, and even the tracking room gives Denzler no reverbs or delays to play with or against. It’s all Tenor, all of the time.
Denzler’s playing is pure patience. This is a delicate record, in effect a drone/ambient affair, and every note and extended technique is carefully executed to keep the focus on sounds produced rather than the person producing them. I don’t know if this is improvisation, but it sounds very composed. There are only a few notes used on the whole record, no vibrato, no shredding Coltrane licks, and because of this I think its appeal extends beyond fans of “saxophone music.” In fact, long passages of the album sound almost electronic in their careful realization.
Filters opens the record on a long Bb (concert Ab) that is continually teased throughout the course of its 17+ minutes. As the title implies, Denzler manipulates the pitch by adjusting his oral cavity, through alternate fingerings, and through multiphonics, creating a series of rhythmic and melodic interjections out of his fundamental note. If you’re not familiar with these kinds of sounds, imagine solo Tuvan throat singing, making melodies out of overtones while the root continues to sound, and you’re getting somewhere near this kind of effect. To that basic sonic approach, the alternate fingerings add quick pitch/tone adjustments that also have a rhythmic component, and some of the multiphonics evoke louder, more abrasive sounds, especially in that last third of the track. While dynamics stay within a fairly consistent range in the early part of the track, there are some louder moments in the last section as well, especially in the 12-14 minute range, where multiphonics almost sound like bowed guitar feedback at times. Many of the rhythm/filter/overtone motifs repeat and oscillate throughout the piece, creating a very composed feel. Denzler does stop to breathe, reattacking his horn again and again, but this doesn’t detract from the drone music vibe for me—if anything it heightens the tension through repetition.
Earlier minutes of Signals continue to work with some of the same materials used in Filters, but a few additional pitches are introduced. Occasionally tonguing effects are used to stop or flutter the pitches, sometimes while they’re also being manipulated through multiphonics. A few very high pitches appear around the 10 minute mark (the “signals?”) which reappear a few more times throughout the piece.
Like Filters, Airtube is a fairly literal description of its music—this piece works with breathing and sucking sounds, sometimes with different keys depressed to change the size/resonance of the instrument, slaptongues that violently and percussively pop through the horn, overblows, etc. This piece moves away from the drone/ambient implications of the first two tracks toward a music steeped in almost industrial sounding rhythms. It also uses the widest dynamic range of the album, with incredibly loud moments and others that are almost inaudible. There are some particularly stunning moments that seem to be produced by following hard slaptongues with extended breathing sounds—I’ve never heard anything quite like it.
Obviously this kind of music isn’t for everyone, but for readers of KiC who like EAI and drone music while shuddering at the potential “macho jazz” implications of a solo sax album, this album will be a pleasant surprise.
Scott Scholz l Killed In Cars l November 2011

Although there is nothing militant about his music, so, too, is Bertrand Denzler's. Although Tenor, his first solo full-length in a recording career now spanning almost a decade, involves no post-production or electronic manipulation, Denzler's tone is sharp (in the sense of precise) and insistent (in the sense of demanding attention) and easily as forceful as some of the crunching cascades of distortion and feedback on Fools. To Denzler, one of the greatest pleasures of playing with Phil Durrant and Burkhard Beins in Trio Sowari has always consisted in being able to savor the full dynamic range between moments of whispering quietude and blasts of sizzling noise and on Tenor, he has now remarkably managed to recreate a similarly wide spectrum of expressions in the solitude of a single studio day in Paris. There are just three pieces on the album, but each makes highly effective use of a simple set of parameters to arrive at multifarious results. In doing so, they also seem to be dealing and working with different physical parts, areas or aspects of the saxophone: First, its keys and pads Filters, then the full range of the  instrument's expressive capacities Signals, until Denzler, on the concluding epilogue conducts his stream of attention towards breath and air, the decisive substances shaping and sculpting each single tone.
For those looking at an album like this foremost from the angle of a demonstration of performance techniques and sound exploration, Tenor undeniably has some fascinating propositions on offer. Denzler is equally capable of creating calm, bass-heavy sheets of undulation as well as roaring multiphonics; simple, dotted one-note lines and complex textures simultaneously made up of inner rhythms, turbulent air currents and harmonics; abrasive metallic colours and tender reed sounds; ricocheting effects, electric razor-like buzzes and wild, aggressive oscillations. At times, he will repeat the same passage twice in a row, merely blowing his horn with a tad more force in the second instant, but creating an entirely new and surprising effect – testimony to the intense physical action taking place here. To direct all attention towards these sonic aspects, Denzler has, save a handful of instances, barred melody from the album. Driving this point home most insistently is opener „Filters“, on which, for the entire duration, Denzler is working with just a single pitch. And yet, each repetition sounds fresh. By means of nothing but breath and pads, he is giving birth to microtonal fields, a wide palette of timbres and constantly shifting accents. Seventeen minutes may seem like a long time for these operations, but already a couple of seconds into the music, one has lost count completely, hypnotised by nothing but the sheer force of his inventivity.
Although Denzler is treating each sound like a world onto itself, there is nonetheless a clear sense of direction and purpose to his work. Decisive moments occur both in Filters and Signals, when the underlying processes reach a culmination point in long, sustained passages of piercing, high-frequency notes. In the former, they indicate a temporary climax of a timbral transformation. In the latter, they seem to draw a line between a long phase of juxtaposition - as part of which a variety of elements are constantly pitted against each other in forever-new combinations - and a sweet, consoling coda. At the same time, these processes are never intellectual constructs amounting to fully-fledged "concepts", but rather paths of development, which keep both performer and public hooked. Denzler's own perspective on these tracks is revealing in this regard: "My idea consisted in simply placing sonic signals within a space and to avoid any kind of linear logic. Asymmetry was a key, the idea of creating a space which I could explore through the use of single notes or repetitions." Thus, the music doesn't end with the attainment of a particular destination point, but simply when Denzler wants it to. Perhaps one should therefore not regard the title to this deeply rewarding solo debut as a declaration of love for the tenor in general, but to "his" saxophone in particular – an instrument which he is re-inventing from scratch with each performance.
Tobias Fischer l Tokafi l August 2011

As his work with Hubbub indicates, Bertrand Denzler is an ardent explorer of saxophone sonics, and his solo work on the CD Tenor is fearless, demanding work. The opening Filters begins with the contrasting of long iterations of the same harsh note alternated with periods of extended silence, setting up dialectics between presence and absence, duration and rhythm. The lengths of the notes and silences will vary, but Denzler keeps up the pattern for all of Filters 17 minutes, microscopically varying the same note with shifts in embouchure, fingering and breathing that introduce different harmonics. It’s insistent work, demanding the utmost in concentration on the listener’s part as well as Denzler’s, the tones and silences expanding to create a universe. The other pieces are in some sense less daunting. The gentler Signals has significantly more variety - rhythmic, timbral and tonal - as it carries the variations in technique to the point where an overtone will dominate; the relatively brief Airtube (11’49”) breaks down the saxophone into its series of component tubes, the sound of breath barely hinted at in Filters now dominant. Clearly this is not music for everyone (that, too, might be hard to imagine), but its improvisation of the highest discipline, ready to reward those kinds of listening that are commensurate with it.  
Stuart Broomer l Point of Departure l June 2011

Bertrand Denzler's titles bear a sense of utility and reduction - Tenor, Filters, Signals, Air Tube - but these close, close timbral variations are, at times, robust and visceral, as full-throated as a Don Byas essay, and as micro-focused on the salivary details of tongue and air as the sonics of Axel Dorner and Franz Hautzinger.
With a self-restricted palette and sustained, one-pointed reworkings of small modulations and extensions of single notes and breath, Denzler at times invokes Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell's similar studies from the Delmark days. On Filters, phrasing simply follows the breath, each iteration coarsening, thickening, eventually splitting each held note, until the one-note motif becomes an over-blown wail, rising and falling, riding the breath. Signals may well be just that, sounding like an inchoate message for properly, perversely attuned ears. As he does in Filters, Denzler mutates the incipient tones, and an attractive admixture of precision and a slightly unformed and freak tonality are braided together and teased apart.
It is this last quality of Denzler's playing on Tenor that holds my interest throughout many listens; Denzler creates a unified field of the altissimo register, with its odd harmonics and unstable pitches, and an obsessive, deliberately self-limited focus on unpacking one note [or small sound area, as on Air Tube, where Denzler basically reduces the saxophone to finger pads and fingerings]. His method, in other words, is nearly surgical, but the music extracted is, as I said, robust and vital.
Strangely as I listened one more time tonight to Tenor, I leaped to an association with William Blake's Auguries of Innocence, that poetic line even non-readers of poetry have heard - to see a world in a grain of sand - this is Denzler's drilling down in each iteration of a note, insisting, literally, that one might discover a world within a single note. Blake continues and an eternity in an hour. While just short of an hour, Denzler's Tenor reaches a state I find pleasing: fullness and a sense of illimitable possibilities in the smallest grains of sound.
Jesse Goin l Crow with no mouth l May 2011

Tenor‘s cover artwork, featuring an x-ray image of Bertrand Denzler’s instrument in its case, is not simply an attractive and intriguing design choice. The photograph is a symbol of Denzler’s approach to his instrument, a inside-out consideration of the core construction and behavior of the saxophone, and a exploration of its capabilities at their most basic level. Like most of the instruments played on Potlatch releases, Tenor‘s tenor is stripped of its conventional musical purposes. This is hardly new ground for the label, but even for Potlatch, this is some pretty austere stuff.
The most striking quality of Tenor is its simplicity. The album’s title is a blunt indicator of Denzler’s focused approach; a track name like Airtube takes things even further. Denzler’s style is unromantic, hinting at the systematic, à la the demonstration records that often accompany a new or unconventional instrument into the marketplace. Sounds are produced in discrete portions and buffered by silence, each track a series of variations on a particular timbre or approach. Filters and Signals explore longer tones, each disparate from the last, but presented in a succession that suggests a parade of the instrument’s possibilities. Permutations in breathing and fingering are used to cause mircotonal shifts, ragged decays, and blatty slabs of gristle. When Denzler settles momentarily on an especially high-pitched whistling or coarsely abrasive growl, the sounds can be bracing, but there’s never a sense that the proceedings are even slightly out of control. Even on Airtube, which focuses on hushed, breathy emissions and percussive clicks and pops, the canvas is kept in order; it’s Tenor‘s most unpredictable track, but still a string of spotlit sounds. There can be a mild tension in awaiting the next installment in Denzler’s sequences, though there’s also ample chance for attention to lapse and the mind to wander. As with much of the music of this ilk, attentive listening provides the most bountiful rewards. It’s up to listener to decide if the effort is worth it.
It’s hard to shake the feeling that Tenor resides too far toward the end of a particular spectrum. I’ll vigorously argue with anyone who asserts that the onus of the artist is simply to acquiesce to his or her audience’s demands. Ease of intake and digestion are not the only way to judge food, nor should they be the primary considerations in assessing the merit of an artistic work. Still, each reader, watcher, or listener has their own internal sense of where to draw a line, when to decide that the ratio of effort to reward has proven too lopsided. For some, it’s Gravity’s Rainbow, for others Finnegan’s Wake; some may balk at 2001, while others can’t get past Tarkovsky. In this way, Tenor may prove to be a bear for even some seasoned Potlatch partisans, not because it’s hard to listen to, but because it may be too easy not to.
Adam Strohm l Dusted Magazine l April 2011

As a member of the groups Hubbub and Trio Sowari, Bertrand Denzler is one of the saxophonists breathing new life into his instrument. He’s used to playing with musicians who are idiomatically a long way from jazz, or even ‘traditional’ (i.e. the Bailey/Brotzmann generation) free improvisation, and his approach centres on the huge range of unorthodox sounds his tenor saxophone is capable of making. Here, on Tenor, he’s taking a note for a walk. Yes, just that. The three lengthy tracks on the CD explore a single note played over and over again, with only a brief pause for breath in between each iteration. Everything else you hear is the result of technique so extended that it provides, in effect, a set of variations on the chosen note. Although there’s nothing new about extended technique, Denzler’s approach is particularly rigorous, and it becomes apparent, as he works through the programme from Filters to Signals to Airtube, that considerable thought has gone into the structure and presentation of the material (the recording of which, by Christophe Hauser, is exemplary). Melody is, of course, nixed, but the textural range is extensive, and there are rhythmic elements in the shifts of airflow in Denzler’s saxophone that produce beatings, pulses and waves of sound. On the final track, Airtube, Denzler blows through different parts of the saxophone to bring new qualities to that one note he has so lovingly addressed throughout the programme. Denzler is as much a tone scientist as a musician, but these saxophone solos aren’t clinical and dry, nor are they austere.
Brian Marley l Signal To Noise l March 2011

In the score of section III of his composition Burdocks, Christian Wolff's only instruction to each musician is to play 511 different sounds on their instrument. Not a straightforward instruction on any instrument, and on a saxophone, it requires considerable inventiveness with the variables that shape the sound of a note – attack, breathing, embouchure, tonguing and so forth. Enter tenor saxophonist Bertrand Denzler, best known as a member of the quintet Hubbub, the saxophone quartet Propagations and Trio Sowari with Burkhard Beins and Phil Durrant.
Tenor is his first solo album, and in keeping with recent Potlatch releases, it combines bold experimentation with a satisfying listening experience. The album consists of three very different tracks, on each of which Denzler only plays one note – or, more accurately, maintains the fingering of only one note. The first, Filters, opens with a series of repeats of the note, each held for the duration of one breath. Initially, each version seems to be played as cleanly as possible, until Denzler gradually introduces subtle modulations into his playing of it. The closer one listens, the more details and variation become apparent, achieved by breath control and use of the tongue. At times, you think he could be playing a different note, as changes in timbre create the illusion of changes of pitch. It would be fascinating to see him play this, live or on video, to know exactly how he achieves all these variations. As the complexity increases, the track builds to a storming climax before subsiding again, to end as simply as it began. It's one of those pieces that demands to be heard again as soon as it has ended.
Next up is Signals, the longest of the three tracks at over 19 minutes. Denzler's methods here immediately contrast with those on Filters. At first he barely blows hard enough to stir the reed, creating a fragile breathy sound. Once he's in full swing, notes are not held for the duration of a breath but are shorter or consist of a series of pulses of varying lengths. One wonders if the title of the piece could literally refer to real signals and whether Denzler is actually playing Morse code! He deploys a range of methods, not necessarily exhaustively exploring one before introducing another, and the gradual evolution of the piece makes for edge-of-the-seat listening. The concentration and rigorous exploration are as admirable as the music.
Finally, on the 11-minute Airtube, Denzler diverges from the methodology of the first two tracks and employs an extensive range of extended techniques. The title reminds us that we're listening to air being blown through a metal tube – trumpeter Axel Dörner's playing comes to mind – as popping key pads create resonances in the instrument body, and metallic clatterings and scrapings, alternations of sucking and blowing, and sudden explosive expulsions of air combine with unorthodox embouchures. It's a tour de force of exploration. Tenor's greatest strength is that it's truly compelling listening, and never sounds like a laboratory experiment. 511 different sounds? There are many more here, easy.
John Eyles l Paris Transatlantic Magazine l March 2011

In my limited experience with Denzler's work, I get the impression that, somewhere along the line, he made a decision to, while acknowledging what we might call post-Butcher saxophonics, not forgo the essential sound of the instrument, insisting on finding newness in the Coltrane and Ben Webster lineage insofar as tone is concerned (while leaving jazz as such by the wayside). Indeed, given the title of the disc, it's hard not to think back to Joe McPhee's early release of the same name, when Hat was still in a Hut and similar explorations were made, albeit firmly alluding to the jazz and blues tradition.
The three tracks here, in textural terms, sort of run from more traditional to less. The first, Filters, concentrates on held, deep tones, fluttering just a bit at the beginning, in small, microtonal shifts, gradually becoming more guttural as the piece progresses, growing louder. This ferocity and grit necessarily connotes ties to free jazz but Denzler seems confident that these can be both nodded to and bypassed. It's a tricky business, to be sure, but to these ears, he pulls it off rather well, the listener able for the most part to concentrate on the pure sound and less on its referents. Signals begins where the previous one left off but softens the attack, drifting into an area midway between a full tenor sound and breath tones. I'm reminded a little bit of early Roscoe Mitchell investigations; this isn't a negative point--I think Mitchell opened up areas that have yet to be fully explored and I'm glad to see Denzler, intentionally or otherwise, coming across a few. Airtube is just that, moving well into the area we've (unfortunately?) come to expect, all breath and key-pops. It's also, to these ears, the most successful piece in a structural sense, feeling less episodic and more architecturally sound, having a strong sense of individual components being integrated into a tensile framework.
Brian Olewnick l Just Outside l March 2011

Tenor puts me in mind of Axel Dörner, for commonalities in approach rather than similarities in sound. As the German trumpeter does in his solo work, French saxophonist Bertrand Denzler presents ideas, then dissects them with a clinical rigour. But where Dörner's methodology can sound dry and juiceless, Denzler's reed investigations wring a variety of moods and registers from a finite - and surely predetermined - range of sounds.
Filters wanders purposefully: Denzler stretches variations of an individual note, holding them for relatively consistent durations, repeatedly worrying them, gradually introducing a range of textural treatments and manipulations, then after a quasi-climax finishing back where he started. Signals likewise begins from a fixed point and deals with a limited set of sounds - notes are sustained into drones, hums, or worked into arpeggio-like patterns, all of which are used as component parts of a fluid structure which Denzler cleverly shifts and doubles back on itself. The more volatile and fragmented Airtube concerns itself with depth of field, alternating rattling blasts with rhythmic pops stuttering in the background. An unexpected segue into a passage of granular, breathy howl provides a pleasing element of instability in a disc which balances compositional smarts with efficient use of a restricted sound palette.
Nick Cain l The Wire l March 2011

Tonight’s CD is a difficult one. I have played it maybe eight or nine times since I first received it here two or three weeks ago. It is difficult because it doesn’t make for easy listening, and while it is clearly a CD of much depth and consideration, connecting with that side of it is not a quick or simple task. Irrespective of how the CD actually sounds, in my opinion these factors make it an intriguing and worthwhile exercise to spend time with the music. So it's taken me a little while to get to writing about this CD, and even now as I begin to write I’m really not sure what I want, or even have, to say about it.
The CD in question is a new release on the exceptional Potlatch label by the Paris-based Swiss saxophonist Bertrand Denzler. Tenor is, according to Denzler’s website the thirtieth full album he has appeared on, but this would also seem to be his first solo in almost twenty years of playing the saxophone. Certainly it would seem that all of that experience informs and illustrates this new CD, but the sounds we hear when we press play are a distillation of all of that, a kind of meditation on the act of playing the tenor saxophone.
There are three tracks here, each working with the very simple idea of including only one note, but then applying a wide range of techniques to the act of playing the sax to alter and affect the sound. The first track, Filters begins with a single note (don’t ask me which one it is sorry) blasting out of the sax. From the very first seconds of the first urgent note, I am reminded of jazz, as this single note, for some reason has all of the resonances that that music holds for me, a thick, warm sound that usually flows on into melody and wild expression. Here that doesn’t happen though. The first blast of sax feels incredibly familiar as Denzler does not disguise the sound in any way, he is, simply playing a single note on a sax. From here though, he ends the blast and after a short pause plays it again, and again, and again, so the idea of jazz disappears, and something more rigorously structured is suggested. The track begins with seemingly no alteration to the ‘pure’ note, but a few minutes in and slight muting of the sound can be detected, leading to the rasping undertow of the reed rounding off on alternate blasts, so although we hear the same pitch it is changed in slight subtle ways.
The track continues through these slight alterations until at around the twelve minute mark the spaces between each burst of sound get shorter and we hear the note almost constantly played for a couple of minutes, pulsing and roaring very loudly, still the same note, but with a world of new textures hidden inside. Gradually the track subsides again and the note begins to pop and whoosh in and out of view with less ferocity. Throughout all of this there is no move towards any kind of shift in pitch or addition of further sounds, just subtle variations placed on this single note. Listening is a bit like sitting on a pebbled beach sorting carefully through stones of a similar shape and size. Each looks the same but closer study reveals much more, from slight variations in texture to sharp alterations in colour.
The second track, Signals follows in a similar vein, but allows the chosen note (the same one I think!) to shift dramatically in volume, from heavily muted, murky rumbles to more harshly blown, rattling burrs. This piece is generally quieter and more varied, with a wider range of quivers and mouth techniques added, the subtlety in presenting the sound really shining through as the control Denzler shows is often exceptional. The closing sections of the track, following a long, contemplative quiet section seem to contain a higher, piercing note rather than the same one the track has begun with. Perhaps the same note has been played, but various adjustments to the instrument, valves closed or fingers adjusted somehow make it sound very different. I am not sure, and not being that adversed in how the sax works as an instrument ther’es probably not much point in me trying to find out.
The final piece, Airtube, the shortest here at a little under twelve minutes is quite different in that the reed is not really ever played in the traditional manner, and instead Denzler blows into many different parts of the instrument, while I think holding the same note in place on the keys, so we get a wild variation on the same “note”, a wide range of splutters and squelches and hisses that hint at achieving a note but very rarely manage it. This piece is my favourite here, not really just because it sounds the least like a sax, but because I really like the idea of stretching the concept of the first two tracks, the exploration of a single note out to this extent, to the point where that note is no longer recognisably even there.
Tenor is a lovely album. It is clearly a work with a lot of thought behind it, a study of the width that a saxophone might have, perhaps a reversal of the instrument’s traditional role as a melodic instrument designed to play a series of notes in one standard manner. if the sax was ‘meant’ to be played straight, and for it then to produce a series of notes, so Denzler takes the opposite route, playing one note but departing from the ’straight’ in as many ways as he knows how. I’m not sure why, but often when I hear solo sax records, (and I seem to have heard an awful lot in recent years) they seem to focus on the instrument rather than the musician, and this disc, as with the music of Seymour Wright, or Martin Küchen seems to explore the saxophone as much as it explores Bertrand Denzler, placing it under a microscope, exploding the possibilities of what seems at first to be a somewhat limited tool. Fine stuff anyway, a refined, thoughtful disc that requires a similar response from its listeners.
Richard Pinnell l The Watchful Ear l January 2011

Terrific experimental sax-work from French honker Bertrand Denzler on Tenor. These three lengthy recorded explorations of mostly one-note monotony, entitled simply Filters, Signals and Airtube inside a sky-blue sleeve, present various aspects of his single-minded determination to venture into every possible dimension of his brassy friend, no nook left unscoured. “Harmonic layers, alterations and inner beats” and “multiphonic fragments” are the order of the day, along with efforts to “explore the tube resonance”.
At first this may read like it’s overly intellectual, the work of a deconstructionist, or simply too process-heavy; and it may remind other listeners of the ongoing efforts of other brass and woodwind improvisers who, for quite some time now, have been refusing conventional musical improvisation in favour of a simplified, self-conscious demonstration of the instrument as a metal tube with air passing through it. However, Denzler’s record is much more loud, full-bodied and startling than many wispy puffs I’ve heard in this genre, and I like the way that his “purpose remains mysterious” as he executes these near-ceremonial exhalations. I’d like to think that our primitive ancestors approached a hollowed-out bone with the same mixture of awe and uncertainty as Denzler.
Ed Pinsent l The Sound Projector l January 2011

Saxophonist Bertrand Denzler's experiments with sound have been well documented. His 30+ releases exhibit an array of playing. Currently, he is working with Phil Durrant and Burkhard Beins in Trio Sowari and with Frédéric Blondy, Jean- Luc Guionnet, Jean-Sébastien Mariage and Edward Perraud in another improvising band called Hubbub, one that can also get noisy. On Tenor he goes at it alone working with just a single note and each chosen note he repeats and restates in multiple alterations, thicknesses and pulses with his tenor saxophone. The three tracks are an exercise in both discipline and imagination.
None of the music presented here has the addition of studio effects or overdubs; these amazing sounds are from one player, sitting in front of a microphone. Filters begins with the simple repitition of a note, but soon Denzler begins to add some extended technique, overblowing, altered fingering, breath and multi-phonics that open that single note from a meditation to a realization. Signals begins even further down the line, with the chosen note overblown and reoccurring in pulses and waves. Finally, Denzler makes his saxophone in an Airtube, blowing notes through different parts of his saxophone to get differing takes on that single note.
Mark Corroto l All About Jazz l January 2011

As well as being part of such improvisation ensembles as Hubbub, Trio Sowari and Propagations Sax Quartet, Bertrand Denzler, who plays the tenor saxophone, also records solo music. Each of the three lengthy pieces on Tenor use a single note which are subsequently layered. Not by repeating them on the computer, like say Phill Niblock would do this, but by adding small variations in how he plays them. In Filters he uses a short repetition, while in Signals, the intervals are longer and thus bringing in more peace to the piece. Perhaps the most interesting piece is the final one, called Airtube, in which he explores the saxophone in its entirety, by blowing into the various parts of the instrument, and not just the mouthpiece. While the whole thing has a rather tranquil feel to it, I must say its quite demanding music. Its minimal music, but not the US variation. Denzler stays close to the improvisation music with his playing technique and its just how he plays that, well controlled, never riding a wrong course, and thoroughly exploring what he sets out to explore. I am known not to be the biggest lover of the instrument, but if there is more like this, I like to have it.
Frans de Waard l Vital Weekly l January 2011

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