Last Exit was one of the most interesting jazz groups to
emerge from the 1980’s. Saxophonist Peter Brotzmann, guitarist Sonny Sharrock,
bassist Bill Laswell and drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson made up a who’s who of
the avant-garde during this period, and this is their only studio album in
addition to half a dozen live LP’s and some youtube videos. So what makes album
different than all of the other records is that it isn’t just pedal to the
floor free jazz, but something rather different. Yes, they stoke up the blast
furnace every bit as can be imagined, but there is much more air and
spaciousness in the music, a sense of brooding calm. The music often has the
lurking fear of a really well made horror movie, one that doesn’t rely on the
cheap thrills but in pacing, light and shadow. “The Black Bat (For Aki Ikuta)”
builds a gradual groove with shards of guitar arcing through the music like
heat lightning. Laswell’s bass is thick, and bounces around the confines of the
tune while Brotzmann bides his time until past the half way point when he
develops a boiling solo that phases out inexplicably, because nothing is as it
seems. This into segues into the truly disturbing “Marked For Death” with evil
bass and drums rolling along making way for the pain train of Sharrock and
Brotzmann at full throttle for only a few seconds. The brevity of the piece
reminds me of a John Zorn Naked City construct. The plodding heavy metal stomp
of “Detonator” gets short bursts of electric guitar across its bow and some
devastating short blasts of Peter Brotzmann’s saxophone. Laswell’s very
“eighties” sounding bass guitar makes a very unusual but interesting
funk/free/metal sound to it. “Cut and Run” is just devastating – Jackson is
amazing while playing at incredible speed and dexterity along with just with the
solos and shading of Sharrock and Brotzmann’s hellfire saxophone, this is two
and a half minutes of wonder. Massive wails of reverberating saxophone on “Eye
for an Eye” certainly sound like punishment and Brotzmann builds them into
scalding hellfire, with concrete slabs of bass riding along as the music becomes
absolutely ferocious. Finally, “The Devil’s Rain” has some wonderfully uptempo
guitar and drums, everyone comes together for a collective improvisation much
like they would do in concert. The studio production sounds a little off, but
there’s really nothing that can contain this band in full flight. Believe it or
not, this was released by Virgin Records, and then dropped like a brick – out
of print for seventeen years. Kudos to ESP for putting back into print a lost and
misunderstood album that does not fit into any one category of music and is all
the better for it.
Iron Path - amazon.com
