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Dunmall/Gibbs/Rogers/Drake

Peace and Joy

SLAMCD267

Recorded live at the Le Mans Festival in May 2005, and adding celebrated drummer Hamid Drake to a trio (saxophonist Paul Dunmall, bassist Paul Rogers, guitarist Philip Gibbs) that has been in existence for half a decade (though Dunmall and Rogers have been collaborating for nearly three decades now), this album comprises two lengthy free improvisations, 'Peace and Joy' and 'Music is Like Oxygen'.

Dunmall does not pick up his tenor in either piece, operating either on soprano or on cabrette bagpipes (which produce a harsh, multi-textured skirling sound), but his passionate flurries, declamations and snatches of melody (he even occasionally incorporates the odd bop quote) are the immediate focus of the listener's attention, riding as they do on a surging tide of rustling drums, driving full-blooded bass and (the mortar in the wall) understated but none the less vital guitar contributions.

Overall, though, this is very much a wholly interactive, democratic group performance, its participants constantly feeding off each other's ideas and demonstrating the level of sophisticated but infectiously intense mutual responsiveness that marks the band out as a premier-league improvising unit. Such music is always best heard live, but this recording provides a pretty fair substitute for that experience.