Full Blast And Friends - Sketches And Ballads - Trost - TR107

Two saxophone stars, the doughty German Peter Brötzmann and the Chicago attack dog Ken Vandermark, feature in an augmented Full Blast trio, their presence usually signifying relentless pulverisation ahead.
But the percussionist Michael Wertmuller has written a score, shadowing Gil Evans' arrangements for Miles Davis' Sketches Of Spain, and fusing jazz composition and noisy improvisation.

Big blowouts bracket considered passages. In the closing sections, strangely familiar phrases find Brötzmann nodding towards a ballad, microwaving memories of Sonny Rollins' Freedom Suite.
First timers can grasp the safety rails of structure. Converts will luxuriate in the lulls between lashings.

(22/1/12)