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Reviews of Recent Media
Charles Gayle + Milford Graves + William Parker
WEBO
Black Editions Archive BEA-003
William Parker + Ellen Christie
Cereal Music
AUM Fidelity AUM119
William Parker + Cooper-Moore + Hamid Drake
Heart Trio
AUM Fidelity AUM118
The most meaningful archive releases are about more than just the music itself, no matter how legendary. They are as much about the times and the scene that produced it – the neighborhood, the venue, the audience. A 3-LP box set of the first trio performances by Charles Gayle, Milford Graves, and William Parker, replete with detailed notes and ephemera like a photocopy of the gig flyer and a folio of 6x9 color photographs of Gayle and Parker’s reunion after Graves’ passing (they hold a gong emblazoned with the drummer’s portrait), WEBO is such a document. It goes beyond bringing a fabled concert in a long-gone space, fleshing out a pivotal moment in New York free jazz history. In 1991, Gayle was only beginning to be recognized as a major force; Graves had only made one commercially released recording in the previous 14 years, performed in public only sporadically, and very rarely allowed his performances to be recorded; and Parker had a mere 50 items in his discography, less than 10% of his output to date. The scene was changing; while The Knitting Factory was upscaling, launching the What is Jazz? festival, other grassroot activists struggled to keep the lights on in their barebones spaces, and musicians frequently produced their own gigs, as was the case with Parker and Webo. Yet, free jazz was thriving and attracting young listeners – eyewitness Alan Licht mentions in his essay that Webo was packed both nights of the stand, a recollection supported by prolonged, ecstatic reactions from the audience.
From the outset, the music is frequently concussive, torrents of howling, bellowing tenor saxophone, thunderous drums and crashing, ringing cymbals, and furiously bowed bass – the mass of sound they produce is stunning. Yet, these onslaughts are not only exhilarating, but effectively make “adventurous” jazz seem hobbled by etiquette. Gayle, Graves, and Parker, are incredibly magnetic maelstroms, with each of the six sides holding the listener in a suspenseful awe that is comparable to chapters in a book that can’t be put down. There are rich details within each improvisation: glints of Coltrane and Ayler in Gayle’s more contoured passages; Graves’ mastery of using pitch in polyrhythms; Parker’s iridescent arco textures. The third disc begins with a decidedly jubilant tone, with Graves and Parker’s grooves presaging those the bassist would refine with Hamid Drake, and Gayle adding a dash of Caribbean flavor to his squalls. However, Graves soon takes it up a couple of flights of stairs, pushing Gayle and Parker with every stroke, taking solos that immediately rank among his best. Just as you think the music can’t be any more cathartic, they take it up another notch. Beyond the music, this box set is extraordinary for its humility; in a market in which lost gems are vaingloriously hyped on an almost weekly basis, it is refreshing that WEBO is presented as culture and not as product.
William Parker and Charles Gayle holding a gong painted by Tatiana Graves-Kochuthara. ©2024 Charlie Gross
AUM Fidelity has played a central role in Parker’s prolific recorded output for more than a quarter-century. Heart Trio and Cereal Music exemplify the diversity of music an artist can produce in a long-term collaboration with a committed label. They are albums that build out facets of Parker’s sensibility as a musician and a poet. Arguably, the impact of Parker’s collaboration with vocalist Ellen Christi, who has developed considerable skills in integrating spoken word with samples and live contributions, is somewhat dependent on the listener’s familiarity with Parker’s vast discography and community of collaborators, as she uses clips from discs by Parker’s Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra and Raining on the Moon, as well as live contributions from Steve Swell, Ben Lahikova, and Dave Sewelson. She also benefits from Parker’s speaking voice, correctly pointing out in her notes that the timbre and resonance of his voice is soothing and reassuring, grounding his more fantastical forays with matter-of-fact homespun warmth. Christi sings on seven of the album’s 15 tracks, just enough to provide a contrasting through line to the constantly shifting colors and tones of this well-sequenced album. Cereal Music is one of those unique, way off center albums that requires close listening, and rewards it.
Although he is a highly individualist multi-instrumentalist and composer, Parker’s aesthetic is communitarian. His recognition that a community is required to produce and to receive music permeates all of his projects. Heart Trio vividly highlights this. The instrumentation employed by Parker, Cooper-Moore, and Drake, is largely indigenous or artist-made. In addition to doson ngoni, shakuhachi, dudek, and Serbian flute, Parker plays a ney flute made by Donald Rafael Garrett. Cooper-Moore plays the first and second instruments he made when he returned to Virginia in the mid-1970s – the East African-inspired ashimba, an 11-tone xylophone, and the hoe-handled harp. Drake’s drum kit is the only modern instrument of the lot – he’s also frequently heard on frame drum. The grooves and atmospheres the trio creates are enlivening, the instrumentation sufficiently rotated to sustain the album’s pace and keep the colors fresh and vivid. Their familiarity with each other is the other key reason why there is a time-altering impact to the music; though each second lingers, the album seems to be over in nearly a flash.
–Bill Shoemaker
