Recorded live at a crucial period of its existence, this Angouleme May 18, 1980 is a splendid testimony of the Willem Breuker Kollektief, a flagship of the new European jazz orchestra. Founded in 1974 to set to music the musical and social ideas Willem Breuker, the WBK brought together musicians that were somehow his students, and he had leverage their individual qualities although initially many of them were not properly improvisers as could be  colleagues such as Bennink, Mengelberg, Maarten Altena, Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Fred Van Hove, Brötzmann and co.
Digging in the aesthetics of Kurt Weil, whose work on WB was authoritative, curiously summoned his arrangements, popular music (circus marches, tango), innovations minimalist and expressionistic free jazz, combining power and subtlety. In May 1980, the pianist Henk de Jonge replaced Leo Cuypers and hornist January Wolff had left the ship, but the trumpeter Andy Altenfelder had not yet joined. Also the music is a little closer to jazz with more elaborate arrangements and the group has earned a reputation explosive. Not less than 4000 people attended these concerts Angoulême and made them public rampaging reminders