CD Review: Last Exit - Köln

[toddaa]

A pioneering free jazz crossover monster that appealed to metal heads,
thrashers, and noise aficionados far more than jazz fans, who often
complained about the excessive volume of the shows, Last Exit will
forever be remembered as one of the most extreme jazz outfits ever.
The brainchild of Bill Laswell, it consisted of Laswell on electric
bass, Ronald Shannon Jackson on drums, Sonny Sharrock on guitar, and
Peter Brötzmann on tenor. Heavily amplified, the music was completely
improvised and almost all of the recordings, which Laswell says there
are a ton of waiting to be released, are live. Basically, these guys
show up and start playing.

The formula is pretty basic to a Last Exit set. Jackson and Laswell
start out with a weird funk groove, Sharrock joins in playing either
an atonal blues riff, or free forming over the groove, and then
Brötzmann destroys whatever semblance of order might have existed
before he started playing. In fact, for a band so heavily amplified,
Brötzmann's the loudest member of the group. With the embouchure of a
pit bull, he's a one man wrecking crew. If you've never heard a
Brötzmann skronk, imagine some big burly drunken brawler yelling at
you through a tenor saxophone. Albert Ayler to the nth degree. Unlike a lot
of his FMP material, however, Last Exit provides him an interesting
vehicle of accessibility (relatively speaking) for an audience not
usually open to European Free Improv.

Brötzmann is really the make or break component of Last Exit. If you
like his radioactive Ayler style, you'll dig Last Exit. Otherwise,
you'll probably return the disc to the record store as defective.
Sharrock, for his part, is just as out there, but his sound tends to
have more structure. It's pretty abstract and atonal, but it fits in
better with what Jackson and Laswell are doing, so is less abrasive
(again, relatively speaking). On the other hand, his demented blues
vocals are borderline ridiculous and sometimes distracting. Let's
face it, Last Exit never was going to be invited to play Carnegie
Hall.

Köln is a very nice introduction to the insanity that was Last Exit
and if nothing else, keeps the criminally under appreciated Sonny
Sharrock from disappearing into obscurity.

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