Last Exit

When it comes to avant-garde jazz/rock noise, few bands kicked out the jams better than Last Exit. A who's who of jazz players with punk attitudes -- guitarist Sonny Sharrock, bassist Bill Laswell, drummer Ronald Shannon Jackson, and saxophonist Peter Brotzmann -they could swing, rock, and create a free jazz din the blink of an eye. More important, they were about the thrill and danger of total improvisation; their debut performance in Zurich in 1986 was completely unrehearsed. For a group so driven by improvisation, it's not surprising that much of Last Exit's catalog consists of live recordings. Because of the individual players reputations, as well as Laswell's position as a producer, Last Exit got a major-label shot with Virgin in 1988. They never became huge, but they continued touring in between various solo projects until they called it a career after the death of Sonny Sharrock in 1994.