COMMITMENT

Commitment

(Flying Panda) Used LP $25.00

Five tracks from 1981 by William Parker on bass, drummer Takeshi Zen Matsuura, Will Connell Jr. on flute, alto, bass clarinet, and violinist Jason Hwang. The music is free-flowing, with slow themes setting the scene for lengthy improvisations and communal creation of sound. “Famine” is the highlight — a staggering composition; a sparse, discomforting environment — created by Parker and Hwang working around the same tonal center, gradually increasing the intensity without creating variation, well illustrating and expressing the title of the piece. Three decades later, one can only be amazed that these young musicians already had some of the great musical personalities and vision that they expanded on during the years to follow. It’s all here — the freedom, the spirituality, the approach that getz more from their instruments than artists had done before.