Alternating Current

 I got a fine CD last week from master drummer Jeff Cosgrove.  Jeff is a fearless explorer of those regions of avant garde hyperspace opened up by the elder captains.  I have previously reviewed his amazing tribute to the music of Paul Motian: Motian Sickness. 

Alternating Current is another voyage for which you will want to be on board.  Cosgrove leads a trio including Matthew Shipp on piano and William Parker on bass.  Anyone who has followed this blog or listened to JazzNoteNSU knows that I am devoted to the music of William Parker.  I think that he might be the greatest living composer of jazz.  I have also featured Matthew Shipp frequently, as I think his word is fundamental.  I will take the liberty of including a bit from one of Jeff’s emails: “Playing/meeting Matt and William was definitely life changing.  The best part is they are some of the kindest people as well.”  I can only imagine, but I am grateful to Jeff for including me in the outreach part of the project. 

Finally, I note that the album is dedicated to Andrew Cyrille who, according to the liner notes, “helped connect the musicians for this recording and has long been an inspiration in improvisation”.  Cyrille is another master whom I have pushed with all the power of my meagre resources. 

The disc has three cuts: ‘Bridges of Tomorrow’ is 38 minutes long.  It is textbook free jazz: a weaving of three great minds with thick rope here and stringy sinews there.  The second and third cuts are shorter and sweeter, if more impressionistic. 

If you love jazz, you will want to get this disc. 

Don Pullen

I have managed to obtain the entire collection of William Parker live recordings released under the title Wood Flute Songs.  There is so much beauty and heartwood in this collection that one cannot hope to appreciate it all in a lifetime.  Everything is here.  All the bits and pieces out of which modern music is composed have been melted down and recast in rainbow colors.  The tracks on which the train of melody rides have been ripped up and laid down again just ahead of the train.  If you listen to my Live365 station, you are sitting in front of William Parker and his co-conspirators. 

Meanwhile, another treasure chest arrived in my mailbox.  I have had Don Pullen’s album Evidence of Things Unseen sitting in my eMusic save file for a long time.  Good thing, that.  The Black Saint and Soul Note box Don Pullen: the Complete Remastered Recordings had that and six other albums.  It cost about 30 bucks.  Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. 

Pullen played piano on a couple of Charlie Mingus albums.  He has bop cred but most of his work under his own name stretches into avant garde.  I am playing the title cut from Evidence, one of his solo recordings.  It is delicious.  Pullen is most often compared to Cecil Taylor.  A lot of the material in this box will support that.  Mostly, though, he is more Monkish than Taylor. 

I am playing ‘Joycie Girl’ from Capricorn Rising.  Alex Blake plays bass, Bobby Battle drums, and Sam Rivers sax.  Finally, I played the title cut from The Sixth Sense.  Fred Hopkins on bass, Battle again on drums, Donald Harrison on sax, and Olu Dara on trumpet. 

Live Genius from William Parker

One more jazz collector’s windfall fell my way last week.  William Parker has released a series of live recordings.  Parker is a bass player and maybe the best avant garde composer working today.  I have featured a lot of his music on my Live365 station and I have loved him dearly for a long time.  The collection is available in a box as Wood Flute Songs.  It includes six concerts on eight CDs.  Amazon was sold out, but fortunately for me the individual discs are available from eMusic. 

William Parker is that rare example of the whole package.  He is a consummate low string finger man, a marvelous composer, and a brilliant band leader.  He seems to be able attract splendid musicians and thump every last bit of genius out of them.  I have never been lucky enough to see him live.  I am lucky enough to have these recordings on my iPod.  While I fix a batch of Texas red chili in my kitchen, Parker’s songs find their way into the beef.  What a wonderful world! 

I am playing ‘Late Man of This Planet’ from Friday Afternoon, with the Raining on the Moon group, recorded at Montreal in 2012.  Also ‘Grove #7’ from Live at Yoshi’s.  That one was recorded in Oakland in 2006.  Both albums are very well produced. 

I’ll be putting more of this up as I listen to it.  Meanwhile, get this stuff.  It is what jazz is.