Erta Ale cover
Released

Despite its name, drummer Paal Nilssen-Love’s Large Unit was relatively compact for a free jazz orchestra, numbering just 11 players including the leader on this 3CD set. It included three brass players (cornet/flugelhorn, trombone, and tuba) and two saxophonists, plus electric guitar, turntable and electronics, and a double rhythm section: two bassists, two drummers. On later releases the group swelled to 15 members, and on one memorable occasion – a collaboration with the Ethiopian group Fendika, with special guest guitarist Terrie Ex – there were 22 people onstage. This set consists of two CDs mixing studio and live material, and a bonus disc documenting a full performance from the Moers Festival. It’s three hours of music in all, and it varies from stomping, romping mass blare to a quiet duet for bass and electronics. You get multiple versions of several compositions so you can compare and contrast, and four versions of a collective improv exercise called “Round About Nothing” that’s radically different every time, but always provides plenty of space for the drummers to go wild.

Phil Freeman

Recommended by

Suggestions
Dune cover

Dune

Klaus Schulze
Even Better cover

Even Better

Michael Formanek, Mary Halvorson, Tim Berne
Radiodream cover

Radiodream

radio.string.quartet.vienna
Horizontal Structures cover

Horizontal Structures

Moritz von Oswald Trio
So There cover

So There

Cikada String Quartet, Steve Kuhn, Steve Swallow, Robert Creeley
Sketches and Ballads cover

Sketches and Ballads

Various Artists, Full Blast
Moment and the Message cover

Moment and the Message

Jonathan Finlayson & Sicilian Defense
Irreversible Entanglements cover

Irreversible Entanglements

Irreversible Entanglements
Live at the East cover

Live at the East

Pharoah Sanders