Low Life Last Exit

Last Exit: Peter Br¶tzmann (ts), Sonny Sharrock (g), Bill Laswell (el-b), Shannon Jackson (dr, voc), recorded 1986
Low Life: Peter Br¶tzmann (b-sax) & Bill Laswell (el-b), recorded 1987
Set loose at last, Last Exit is a record of extraordinary power and concision. It is a lexicon of lightning, making improvisation vivid in jagged, flashing, flaring soundbursts. The group's lustral, emotion-loaded music - and indeed, the savage volume level at which it is administered - rules out neutral fence-sitting. You're either for these musicians and the directions they represent, or against them, it seems to me. Indifference is not an option. Personally, I still consider the group's emergence a sort of 7th-Cavalry-to-the-rescue scene in the final reel of The Story Of Free Jazz. Within a year the quartet had become very precise, tight on its own terms. 'You know, I really feel the Exit quartet is getting stronger all the time,' Peter Br¶tzmann said last year. 'We've been through our 'power-playing' period, I don't want to be typecast as just a 'blaster.' Now the 's-t' is really wide open. It can go anywhere. The interaction is getting to be very sensitive - though I'm sure there'll always be some of the good old passion and violence. But there's a lot of potential still to be explored, and I hope we get the chances to explore it.' Steve Lake, 1990