The Fish - Live at Olympic Café & Jazz à Mulhouse

Henrik Kaldahl, Jazznett

The Fish are a French trio who is dedicated to playing free jazz and improvising, and does it very, very well. The Fish are the following three musicians – Jean-Luc Guionnet on alto saxophone, Benjamin Duboc on bass and Edward Perraud on drums.
This release, from Ayler records, is a double CD with live numbers from two concerts - one from the Olympic café in Paris France on the 22. of December 2005 and one from The Mulhouse jazz festival, France on the 26. of August 2006.
Three long numbers are what we as listeners are being presented for, and what fantastic numbers they are. Guionnet blows and screams on his saxophone like it was the last thing he has got to do in this world, Duboc tortures the strings on his bass with amazing groovy results and Perraud bangs and smashes the drums with such power that you are afraid that he is going to destroy his drum skins.

The most amazing thing about The Fish are the truly amazing interplay between the musicians, all three of them are improvising and going in different directions, playing the best they have ever learned, but they always keep it together. Never going to long out with their improvisations and never playing without a purpose.
It is releases like this one that makes it all worth while being a free jazz fan, to hear the joy and love of playing from this trio convinces me that the great masters like Albert Ayler, John Coltrane and many others has not lived for no reason.
If you only are going to buy one free jazz CD this summer, then this is the one you should be going for, I promise you that you won't be disappointed – The Fish is the bomb.