MARSHALL ALLEN / HAMID DRAKE / KIDD JORDAN / WILLIAM PARKER / ALAN SILVA
All-Star Game
(Eremite) Used CD $17.00
“There’s much to celebrate about these two discs, classic encounters of the energy chapter of free jazz -- in each case two saxophones and rhythm section blowing toward some apocalyptic possibility; no theme in sight, with power and conviction that have too often seemed drained from American free jazz. What happens in each case is an explosion of impassioned utterance, soul-searing work in the rituals first defined by Ayler, Coltrane, Sanders, and the Sun Ra reed section of which Marshall Allen was a member. These may not, in any sense, be regular bands, but they’re bands without a weak link, whether ego-centric, technical or conceptual. The All-Star Game features what is unquestionably the senior ensemble. It’s a marvelous meeting in which Allen and Jordan dance across the pulsing maze of multiplying rhythms set up by Drake an\d the two basses of Parker and Silva (another early presence). While Jordan unquestionably belongs in the All-Star Game, he is among the most under-rated of musicians, a fountain of torrid energy and exalted invention who is entirely worthy of this rhythm section.” From 2000. Clipped corner
Prism
(Ultramarine - UM017) 2xLP $24.00 (Out-of-stock)
Upright bassist Parker is one of the last men standing who, according to Derek Bailey, still plays "pure free jazz," while Morgia (Control Unit, The Right Moves, Quivers) here reaches the top-level of avant guitar, his sounds ranging from Stockhausen’s tape experiments to the saxophones of Braxton and Evan Parker. Morgia's alien sound finds an excellent match in Parker's slide whistle and a strange Spanish reed instrument called gralle. During the making of this recording, Parker asserted: “This is the music I have always had in my mind, the music I have been dreaming about. Music that inspires me with visions of colors, like the light reflecting through a prism."
DENNIS CHARLES / MARCO ENEIDI / WILLIAM PARKER
Vermont Spring
(Botticelli) Used LP $40.00
Dixon-influenced free jazz from the mid-1980s. Covers of “Sorry… Ballada” by Jimmy Lyons and Ornette Coleman’s “Broken Shadows,” plus the traditionals “Stand Back” and “Rise Up.” Original 1986 pressing