Peter Janson, Jonas Kullhammar & Paal Nilssen-Love - Live at Glenn Miller Café

François Couture, All Music Guide

Not only had these three musicians never played as a trio before, they had not performed in the same groups. Ayler Records own by Jan Ström invited Swedish saxophonist Jonas Kullhammar to make up his free jazz dream trio for a performance/recording at the Glenn Miller Café, a reputed Stockholm improvised music joint.
Both bassist Peter Janson and drummer Paal Nilssen-Love have been busy on the local, European, and in the latter's case American scenes.

Live at Glenn Miller Café, Vol. 1 documents the second of two evenings.

The tentative moves of a first encounter, not unlike the dance steps two boxers do to study their opponent at the beginning of a fight, hold their interest. Nevertheless Ström, like most free jazz fans, prefers the punches and stabs of a combat well under way and that's what this CD is about.
Entirely improvised, the music remains firmly anchored in jazz. Pulses, licks, solo space, they all abound following a recipe dating back to Ornette Coleman. After all, Kullhammar is a melodic player (don't worry, he can grunt his way out of a tensed situation).

The evening starts with a frenetic work out, the ten-minute Cold Thrills, an exemplary instant composition. The second number, Slowdown, begins with an anti-climactic bass solo and remains subdued. The last two numbers were more ambitious in terms of duration (24 and 28 minutes) and dynamics. Smash-and-Grab looses some of its impetus halfway through, but Blow-Out remains consistent, Janson ostinato at 13:30 infusing a second life into what could have been a soon-concluding piece.
Sound quality is excellent making this a crisp, vivid live document.