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Released

In 1987, while guitarist Sonny Sharrock and saxophonist Peter Brötzmann were playing in bassist Bill Laswell’s jazz-metal quartet Last Exit, they embarked on a brief side trip to join drummer Ginger Baker (whose album Horses And Trees Laswell had just produced) in this quintet, which also featured guitarist Nicky Skopelitis and bassist Jan Kazda. They performed two concerts at the end of March; this album originally contained just one of them (March 28), but the next night’s show was added to the 2013 reissue. Those coming in expecting Last Exit-ish fire and fury will come away mildly disappointed. The grooves are gentler, with Skopelitis’s hypnotically repetitive lines and Kazda’s deep, dubby bass honoring Baker’s interest in African rhythm and extended exploration. Brötzmann blows free, but never attempts to drown out the others — as always, he’s listening more carefully than he’s given credit for — and Sharrock returns to his roots in R&B, while keeping his strings sharp for when the right moment strikes.

Phil Freeman

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