Jazz breaking news: Full Blast Trio Plus Ken Vandermark Close Cafe Oto Residency With Scorching Finale

Through his trademark belligerence Peter Brötzmann had a tendency to dominate proceedings last night, but this is what we want and expect of jazz’s “big bad wolf” – how the others dealt with this would be the gig’s defining test. Roused from the get-go by a fractured powerhouse swing. Brötzmann on alto and Vandermark on tenor saxophones joyfully jostled and cajoled each other like two breakneck rapping MCs, lending their voices to accent and bolster the other at the end of taut, high octane passages.

The group rampaged like a call to arms, inciting its followers to become lost in the rhythm and power of the music. They demonstrated an exacting and demanding range, from spare introspection to all out walls of sound; the subtlest of gestures or cues could open up the dizziest of free-form break-downs, a sudden drop off, or a cavorting swing section such as at the close of the group’s first improvisation in which Brötzmann and drummer Michael Wertmuller synchronised a series of off-kilter rhythmic thrusts. Marino Pliakas on electric bass was a persistent, ominous presence. His judicious use of effects projected the group’s aesthetic into noise / experimental-rock territories, encouraging Brötzmann to unleash free-shrieks of white noise. Wertmuller would cascade from a tense, sustained snare bustle into an avalanche of bass-drum obliteration. Yet even at these free-improvisational extremes, he could suggest rampant grooves and swing.

Vandermark emerged with a distinctive and contrasting voice to “Herr Brö” even though it did get shouted down on one or two occasions. Where Brötzmann electrified the air with feral abandon, Vandermark would work a phrase through a total freak-jazz work-out, lacerating it with the full lexicon of contemporary free-sax linguistics, but the phrase would remain resilient and triumphant throughout.

– Joseph Kassman-Tod