Boston-based saxophonist Charlie Kohlhase pays wry tribute to his home state of New Hampshire with the title of Play Free or Die, the first live release by his longstanding quintet. Kohlhase loves the mordant, baritone-heavy sound of Sun Ra�s 1950s Arkestra, and at the heart of this double-CD is a cover of �Super Blonde� (aka �Super Bronze�) from Ra�s Super-Sonic Jazz, a blues line so fearsomely baroque it could serve as a parody of a bopper�s sophistication of the blues. First trumpeter John Carlson skitters across it, then Matt Langley contributes a tremendous leaps-and-bounds tenor solo; Kohlhase follows on baritone, similarly agile but also exploiting the distinctively obstinate sound of his instrument. Elsewhere, Kohlhase plays tenor and (more often) alto, on the latter sounding as gracefully acerbic as Julius Hemphill or James Spaulding. Kohlhase�s own themes are as action-packed as a comic book and as spontaneous in feel as graffiti. He often threads pieces together into a larger suite: disc 1 contains two pieces from the �Dr Doom Suite� (a musical serial a la Flash Gordon), while disc 2 contains the entirety of �The �Mad� Suite,� four pieces all dealing with tension on everything from the domestic to the global scale (from an unpleasant experience with a roommate to the 1991 Gulf War). Of the two suites, �Dr Doom� contains the more compelling. �Doom Is Yours� opens with what sounds like Freddie Hubbard trying to helm an increasingly haywire south-of-the-border session, and includes a remarkable Langley solo (hoarse tenor grotesquely trying to twitter like a bird); �Doom Is Mine� offers wonky swing figures out of Ra or Anthony Braxton, a nerve-racking bass riff and one of Kohlhase�s hottest solos of the disc. �The �Mad� Suite� is comparatively disappointing, despite a terrific start which finds the players sardonically mired for seven minutes in the same jolting series of phrases; too much of its 41-minute duration, though, is allotted to lengthy unaccompanied solo performances that segue between the infrequent outcrops of written material. Play Free or Die could have been compressed to a single-CD release, since only the inclusion of �The �Mad� Suite� pushes the program beyond the 80-minute time limit of a cd. But the album is so generally fine that one forgives Kohlhase the slightly overlong program. Recommended listening for fans of inside/outside playing.