Big Bad Brötzmann Quintet: Bambule!

This set finds legendary free jazz innovator Peter Brötzmann leading his Big Bad Quintet, along with fellow German improvisational champions, keyboardist Oliver Schwerdt, drummer Christian Lillinger, bassist John Eckhardt and fabled British bassist John Edwards to round out a sweltering session, teeming with notions of turmoil, and enduring interchanges.

Brotzmann is like a turbo-charged bulldozer flattening all the unwieldly routes throughout these two extended tracks.  As the German translation of the album moniker infers, a non-violent prison protest. Hence, these hard-nosed pieces, featuring chunky and nimble dual bass lines; Lillinger's snappy rim shots, Herculean tom-rolls and popping beats, give the album title justice. On "Bambule!," a sense of urgency prevails, where Schwerdt and Lillinger use percussion implements to add an avant-garde tribal aspect to the saxophonist's fluid sheets of sound and emotive squeals, contrasted by the bassists' sawing arco passages and the pianist's dizzying chord patterns. Also, Brotzmann picks up the soprano saxophone-like tarogato to conjure dark and blurry woodwind phrasings during the often-intensifying movements.

The band occasionally lowers the temperature via inward-looking sentiment and intricate developments. Moreover, Brotzmann uses the clarinet to inject some comic relief in spots yet often blows the walls down performing on tenor sax and engages Schwerdt for several whirling dervish episodes. And there's a revved-up audience who demanded an encore, leading to "Bambule Again!" complete with the reedman's husky articulations, comped by the pianist's bristling undertones as the exploration into parts unknown continues. Throughout, the musicians spark imagery of a marathon running event, mutated with professional wrestling and a heavyweight boxing match while casting a simmering infusion of imaginative teamwork amid split second timing.