Challenges, Changes, and New Avenues for Expression

 

Photo: Shervin Lainez

In 2021, in the midst of the Pandemic, composer and producer Ryan Truesdell was worried about the future of the Big Band, a genre he has been quite committed to for a long time.  He changed his focus and decided to commission a number of big band composers to write pieces for string quartet.  Truesdell then worked with cellist Jody Redhage Ferber to help him think through the project and to advise on which musicians to invite into the studio to record what turned out to be 17 new pieces for string quartet plus, in several instances, additional instrumentation. He did not give the composers any restrictions but did invite them into the studio to work with the musicians who were interpreting their work.

The results of the experiment can be heard on "Ryan Truesdell Presents: Synthesis: The String Quartet Sessions" released through ArtistShare. Besides recording three of of his own string quartet pieces, the producer, who is the Manager of the Bob Brookmeyer Music Estate, used a work that the St. Louis Symphony had commissioned from the late trombonist-composer (1929-2011) but never recorded. Anyone who listens to contemporary Big Band music will recognize Jim McNeely, John Clayon, Christine Jensen, John Hollenbeck, Alan Ferber, Dave Rivello, and, perhaps, Miho Hazama but Truesdell also invited younger composers such as Joseph Borsellino III, Nathan Parker Smith, Vanessa Perica, and Asuka Kakitani. Producer and arranger extraordinaire Oded Lev-Ari debuts a new work as does bassist Rufus Reid, who premieres his "String Quartet #1". 

Photo: Leo Mascaro

How should one approach "Synthesis", a three-CD set containing nearly three hours of music? One obvious answer is with "open ears and an open mind" but that's too easy. You literally have to set aside that these composers, many of whom you've heard in large instrumental ensembles are working with a much different palette. As stated above, there are a few additions to the Quartet; clarinetist Anat Cohen is the main soloist on Truesdell's "Suite for Clarinet and String Quartet", bassist Jay Anderson joins a Quartet on Truesdell's "Heart of Gold", composer Borsellino III uses pre-recorded synth tracks on his "Paper Cranes", and Hollenbeck adds marimba, drums, and piano (not all on the same movements) to different movements of his seven-part "Grey Cottage String Quartets" that closes the album.  The Brookmeyer piece was written for and is performed by a string trio.

Photo: Leo Mascaro

There are pieces that have impressive rhythmic flow (the album opener "Where Can You Be" by Mr. Parker Smith Ms. Hazama's "Chipmunk Timmy's Funny Sunny Day", and Ms. Jensen's "Tilting World") and others that have moments where time is suspended or fractured (the "#1 Movement" of Mr. Reid's "String Quartet #1", Mr. Lev-Ari's "Copycat" movement of "Playground", and Mr. Rivello's "1. "Sorry" section of "Two Reflections for String Quartet". Several of the works jump out on first listening including Mr. McNeely's "Murmuration and Adagio", the leader's lovely "Dança de Quarto" and his four-part "Suite for Clarinet and String Quartet", and Ms. Kakitani's "Melt".

Photo: Dina Regine

This project owes much of its success to the brilliant musicians who interpreted the variety of styles, genres, ideas, and desires of the composers.  Violinist Sara Caswell appears on every track while cellist Redhage Ferber appears on all but two (she's replaced by Noah Hoffeld). The second violin chair features either Joyce Hammann or Lady Jess (who tours with Beyoncé as well as with her husband Jay-Z). Violist Lois Martin performs on the majority of the album save for the three times she is replaced by Orlando Wells.  

Perhaps that's the best way to enter into this glorious project: just listen to the musicians. Throw aside expectations and comparisons. Dive in, test the musical waters – take your time but also make the time to go back and really allow the music to move you out of the everyday and into its special worlds. 

As stated above, "Ryan Truesdell Presents: Synthesis: The String Quartet Sessions" is only available through ArtistShare.  Go to www.synthesissqs.com/ for more information. To learn more about Ryan Truesdell, go to https://ryantruesdell.com/.

Here's a little morsel:

Hear What I've Been Listening To (7/25/22)

String quartets are usually not the bailiwick of this blog but there have been a slew of new (and, to be fair) older recordings that have caught my fancy in recent months.  In June, it was the massive seven-CD box set of the collected string quartets of Wadada Leo Smith (still working my way through that) as well as the brilliant three-CD solo violin set from Johnny Gandelsman's "This is America" which led me back to listen to his work with the Brooklyn Rider string quartet.    

Around the same time, I became aware of PUBLIQuartet, a string ensemble founded in 2010 and based in New York City.  Composed of Curtis Stewart (violin), son of tuba master Bob Stewart, Jannina Norpoth (violin), daughter of Detroit-based music master A. Spencer Barefield, Nick Revel (viola), and Hamilton Berry (cello), the string quartet pushes at the boundaries and prejudices about 21st-Century classical music inspired by the work of Kronos Quartet, Roscoe Mitchell, Caroline Shaw, and many others.  Among their projects is "Mind| The| Gap|" which brings diverse musical material from folk, blues, pop, and elsewhere and presents them in a new musical light.  

"What Is American" (Bright Shiny Things) is the PUBLIQ's third album and follows in the structure of 2019's "Freedom & Faith" in there are suites, adaptations, new music, and improvisations.  Among the 20 tracks are four short pieces, all sharing the main title "Fifth Verse", that connect the words poet Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote in 1861 that added a verse to "The Star Spangled Banner" to support the Union Cause in the Civil War.  The ensemble opens the program with their take on Antonin Dvořák's "String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96 "American", one of the pieces the Czech composer wrote while in the United States (1892-1895) as the head of the National Conservatory of Music in NewYork City. One can easily hear the influence of Negro Spirituals on the composer while the PUBLIQs use of percussion and voice throughout the four movements underscore that influence.

It's a fascinating program.  The quartet play the four-movement "Dig The Say", a piece pianist Vijay Iyer composed for Brooklyn Rider based on the music of the "Godfather of Soul" James Brown. Part of the fun of the piece is just how funky it is but also the introspection built into the second movement. Instrument are used for percussion, there are quick stops, foot stomping, pizzicato, and an overall sense of joy.  There are pieces by Rhiannon Giddens (the powerful blues "At The Purchaser's Option"), Roscoe Mitchell (the enigmatic "CARDS 11.11.20"), and improvisations on works by Fats Waller ("Honeysuckle Rose"), Ornette Coleman ("Law Years" and "Street Woman"), plus the four improvisations that close the album under the title "Wild Women"––they include hand-clapping funk of "Black Coffee" by Tina Turner, the high-powered in-your-face soul of "They Say I'm Different" by the late Betty Davis, Alice Coltrane's ecstatic "Er Ra", and closing with Ida Cox's feisty anthem "Wild Women Don't Get The Blues".  

Some might say that "What Is American" is way too ambitious a project––of course it is. It has to be. For as much as the media makes the US look as if it is either right wing or left wing, overall it is way too complex to neatly drop into two sides.  By taking their influences from a plethora of genres, by adding improvisation, voices, and more, this program shows just how diverse this country is. And that's good. That is something we need to remember!  PUBLIQuartet has much on its mind but foremost, they want to use music to educate, entertain, and energize a pandemic-numbed world.  

For more information, go to www.publiquartet.com.  To hear more and purchase, go to https://publiquartet.bandcamp.com/album/what-is-american.

Here's Vijay Iyer's "Dig The Say - 1: Carry the Ball": 

Boxes Filled With History, Boxes Filled With Music

 

January 24th was the 83rd birthday anniversary of saxophonist, composer, arranger, conceptualist, and story-teller Julius Hemphill (1938-1995).  Before forming the World Saxophone Quartet, the Fort Worth, Texas, native had co-founded the Black Artists Group (BAG) in St. Louis and, upon moving to New York City in the early 1970s had recorded with trumpeter Lester Bowie and fellow saxophonist Anthony Braxton.  The WSQ began in 1977 and was an ensemble that originally included Oliver Lake, Hamiet Bluiett, and David Murray –– Hemphill stayed with the ensemble for 13 years, touring and making albums for Black Saint and Nonesuch Records. After leaving that group, he formed an "electric" band, a saxophone sextet, and composed for big band and string quartet plus works for solo piano performed by long-time companion, Ursula Oppens, an opera, and several works for dance companies.  Hemphill created two truly fascinating solo albums "Roi Boyé and the Gotham Minstrels" (Sackville Records) and "Blue Boyé" (Mbari Records) both issued in 1977. Both "solo" recordings feature multiple tracks of alto and soprano saxophones plus flute, and, like the vast majority of Hemphill's original music, blurred (often obliterated) the lines between blues, folk, and jazz. "Roi Boyé", as well, is noted for Hemphill's use of overdubbed voices and poetry. 

New World Records has just issued the seven-CD "THE BOYÉ MULTI-NATIONAL CRUSADE FOR HARMONY" with the subtitle "Archival Recordings 1977-2007".  One hears the composer-saxophonist in numerous lineups as well as one solo track. Especially fascinating are the duos with cellist Abdul Wadud, bassist Jerome Harris, and with poet K.C. Lyle and Malinké Elliott.  The seventh CD "Live at Joyous Lake" features a quartet including Hemphill, trumpeter Baikida Carroll, bassist Dave Holland, and drummer Jack DeJohnette.  Each of the seven runs over 60 minutes with three running more than 73 minutes.  One ensemble, The Janus Company ––a trio with Hemphill, Carroll, and drummer Alex Cline –– is featured on the third disk. Two of the three trio tracks come from a studio while the third piece comes from a live gig recorded by the trumpeter in Berkeley, CA.  Two more live performances recorded by Carroll in Philadelphia, PA, feature cellist Wadud with the trio; one gets to hear a powerful performance of "Dogon A.D." that is filled with roaring and soaring solos.  

Photo: George Rose/ Getty

Not only are there previously unheard compositions of Hemphill's but also the "Chamber Music" disk features "Mingus Gold", three pieces by bassist Charles Mingus that Hemphill arranged for the Daedalus String Quartet.  Included in the set, recorded in the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, MA, is a rollicking rendition of "Better Get Hit In Yo' Soul."

One could write that "THE BOYÉ MULTI-NATIONAL CRUSADE FOR HARMONY" is a collection for Julius Hemphill completists. That is somewhat false in that these 52 tracks are not a collection of alternate takes but truly a deep dive into the many ensembles that Hemphill wrote for, organized, and played with. Many of these pieces are issued here for the first time.  There are several pieces on which the leader stretches out, letting loose, showing his mastery of his reeds as well as how he is such a delightful "conversationalist" when he plays. Those who purchase this set (information below) should take the time to read producer Marty Ehrlich's incisive and expansive essay on the person and the music you're listening to.   

For more information, go to www.newworldrecords.org/products/julius-hemphill-1938-1995-the-boye-multi-national-crusade-for-harmony-box-set. 

To whet your appetite, here's Julius Hemphill and Abdul Wadud from the 1993 album "Oakland Duets":

Photo: Jason Andrew

Bassist, composer, conceptualist William Parker (born January 10, 1952) has been a mainstay of Black Creative Music since 1971. In those days and nights of the New York City "Loft Jazz" scene, Parker played alongside luminaries such as drummers Ed Blackwell and Sunny Murray, trumpeters Don Cherry and Bill Dixon, and in 1980, pianist Cecil Taylor.  He was an original member of saxophonist David S. Ware's Quartet, playing with that ensemble from 1988 through Ware's untimely death in 2012.  He's also played extensively with pianist Matthew Shipp in several of his ensembles, with saxophonist Peter Brötzmann, with guitarist/ bassist Joe Morris, with trumpeter Roy Campbell (in the group Other Dimensions in Music) and many others.  Parker has been issuing albums as a leader and co/leader since the early 1990s on labels such as FMP, AUM Fidelity, Eremite, Thirsty Ear, Centering Records, and other independent outlets. As a bassist, Parker can be solid, foundational, holding down the bottom in the style of Wilbur Ware and Charles Mingus; like the latter musician, he's also a powerful, melodic, soloist.

2021 brings, perhaps, the most impressive set of recordings in Parker's career.  "Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World (Volumes 1–10)" (AUM Fidelity) is a 10-CD box, 10 very different settings of the bassist's music ranging from small groups to solo piano to a chamber ensemble and beyond; (notably missing is Parker's Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra which has been on hiatus since 2006).  Seven of the CDs feature vocalists; included are sessions with Fay Victor (with Parker and percussionist Hamid Drake), Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez​ (with a chamber octet), Ellen Christie (in a trio setting with Parker and trumpeter Jalulu-Kalvert Nelson), Kyoko Kitamura (in a quintet session with Parker), Jean Carla Rodea (with Parker and 10 other musician), Lisa Sokolov (solo voice), and Andrea Wolper (with Parker in a septet session dedicated to Italian movie directors).  

Photo: Peter Ganushkin

The remaining three recordings are instrumental.  Pianist Eri Yamamoto, who has often performed and recorded with the bassist, plays 14 solo Parker piano pieces on "Child of Sound", an impressive display of melody, emotion, and rhythmic variation.  "The Fastest Train" (CD #9) features Parker on a variety of flutes in a trio setting with Coen Aalberts (flutes, percussion, bird sounds, cricket sounds, drum set) and Klaas Hekman (flutes, piccolo, shakuhachi). Even though there are no vocals, every one of the 13 songs has a poem associated with the music. "Manzanar" is the 10th album and features Parker (various flutes, mouth organ) with the Universal Tonality String Quartet (violinists Jason Kao Hwang and Gwen Laster, violist Melanie Dyer, and cellist Dara Bloom). On the final track, "On Being Native", Parker is replaced by alto saxophonist Daniel Carter.  

All but one of the albums that comprise "Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World" was recorded between November 2018 and February 2020, the exception being "The Majesty of Jah" that was originally recorded in Autumn of 2010. In 2019, vocalist and conceptualist Ellen Christi took the original tapes, adding voices, sound snippets, and reassembled the album.  10 albums, 10+ hours of music, each ensemble has fascinating stories to tell, all coming from the fertile imagination of William Parker.  He endows his musicians and vocalists with the power to use their imaginations, to listen and interact, to make each ensemble unique and each track worth exploring. Spend a good amount of time with each one of these albums, find the pieces that speak to you, explore the ones that make you uncomfortable, read the copious notes but not until after you listen at least once, and then listen again.    

For more information, to listen to selected tracks, and to purchase the box set as CDs or audio files, go to https://williamparker.bandcamp.com/album/migration-of-silence-into-and-out-of-the-tone-world-volumes-1-10.  To check out Mr. Parker's career and other collaborations, go to www.williamparker.net/.  

Summertime Hues (Part 1)

Life has been busy around this reviewer's household and different communities but that does not stop (thankfully) the new releases coming through the mail or the ether.  This column starts a series of shorter reviews of recordings that arrived over the past few months.

Saxophonist, composer, and arranger Quinsin Nachoff is no stranger to utilizing strings in his compositions and performances––in fact, his 2006 debut "Magic Numbers" (Songlines) featured his quartet paired with a string quartet. Violinist Nathalie Bonin played on that project as well as on 2008's "Horizons Ensemble" so she asked her fellow Canadian (she's from Montreal while Nachoff is from Toronto) to write her a concerto.  It took the composer a number of years but the piece was first workshopped in 2014 and then recorded in 2018.  Nachoff decided to collect his classical or classically-inspired works on one album. The results, three different pieces, can be heard on "Pivotal Arc", released this month (August 2020) on Whirlwind Recordings.

The "Violin Concerto" is in three parts, nearly 46 minutes long and features all the musicians listed below save for the composer. Very much in the traditional form but quite non-traditional orchestration, the music features Ms. Bonin's striking and powerful playing throughout but one cannot ignore the work of the Molinari String Quartet as well as the rhythm section of Michael Davidson (vibraphone), Mark Helias (bass), and Satoshi Takeishi (drums, percussion) plus the colorful reeds and brass (kudos to bass trombonist Bob Ellis for his strong low tones).  In his research, the composer paid close attention to a number of 20th Century composers, among them Alban Berg, Igor Stravinsky, Kurt Weill, and others but one also hears folk, jazz, and African elements in the rhythms.

Photo: Evan Shay

The 16+ minute "String Quartet" was commissioned by and is performed by the Montreal, Quebec, Canada-based Molinari Quartet. This music is brash like the Concerto but with even more allusions to the experimentation of 20th Century classical composers.  Through-composed, there are moments in each of the movements that feel "free', as if the musicians were "cueing" each other to make quick shifts in intensity.

The 15-minute title track closes the album opening with a powerful bowed bass solo from Helias.  Ms. Bonin plays the first theme, joined first by the string and then the composer on tenor saxophone.  Various voices move in and out but pay close attention to impressive and, at times, playful percussion of Takeishi.  The brashness of the earlier pieces is replaced by an airiness, a sense of swing instead of flow: listen to the sections float around above the tenor solo and how, as the intensity picks up, for just an instance, so does the tempo.  Ms. Bonin returns closer to the end, the storminess of the middle section is not replaced by a lengthy melody shared by several instruments until the bowed bass returns to take the piece to its gentle conclusion.

As an album, "Pivotal Arc" serves to show the world the versatility and maturity of the composer Quinsin Nachoff.  Listeners might prefer to listen to the "Violin Concerto" in its entirety then come back at a later time to listen to the "String Quartet" and the title track.  There's a lot happening in this music and you really want to pay close attention to hear the richness of the melodies, the excellent musicianship, and the powerful work of violinist Nathalie Bonin. One of this year's more fascinating releases, "Pivotal Arc" is worth your time.

For more information, go to www.quinsin.com.  To hear more and to purchase the album, go to https://quinsinnachoff.bandcamp.com.

Here's the "Second Movement" of composer Nachoff's "Violin Concerto", Natalie Bonin, violin soloist:



Personnel:

Nathalie Bonin - violin soloist 

Molinari String Quartet: 
Olga Ranzenhofer - violin I 
Antoine Bareil - violin II 
Frédéric Lambert - viola 
Pierre - Alain Bouvrette - cello 

Quinsin Nachoff - tenor saxophone, composer 

JC Sanford - conductor  
Michael Davidson - vibraphone 
Mark Helias - bass 
Satoshi Takeishi - drums, percussion 
Jean-Pierre Zanella - piccolo, flute, clarinet, soprano sax 
Yvan Belleau - clarinet, tenor saxophone 
Brent Besner - bass clarinet 
Jocelyn Couture - trumpet I 
Bill Mahar - trumpet II 
David Grott - trombone 
Bob Ellis - bass trombone 

Photo: Brian Cohen

Bassist and composer Michael Formanek has been in ears of creative music listeners for nearly five decades. He first came to critical attention when he joined drummer Tony Williams's ensemble and has gone on to play with Freddie Hubbard, Stan Getz, Gerry Mulligan, Fred Hersch, Jane Ira Bloom, Marty Ehrlich, Harold Danko, Tim Berne, and a host of others. Currently, he is one/third of the cooperative trio Thumbscrew with guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara. He's recorded for ENJA Records, Screwgun, Intakt Records, and ECM, the label that issued "The Distance" by his amazing Ensemble Kolossus. His latest release is the third in a trio of albums that bassist Adam Hopkins issued in July and August of this year on his Out of Your Head Records label. All of the albums (the others include bassist Nick Dunston in a quintet setting and saxophonist Anna Webber's Quartet) were recorded live under less-than-ideal conditions or "Untamed" as the label has written on each release).

Formanek's contribution is "Pre-Apocalyptic": recorded in 2014 (but the artist is not sure where), the music, all tracks composed by the bassist, features Tim Berne (alto saxophone), Craig Taborn (piano), and Gerald Cleaver (drums), the same group that recorded his first two albums for ECM in 2010 and 2012––in fact, five of the seven songs come those albums, one from Ensemble Kolossus, and one newer work.  This quartet lives and breathes the music with the ability to stop and start without a dropped note, play complicated melody lines, and all solo with creativity.  Because the four musicians had worked together so often by the time of this gig, their familiarity with the music gives them license to push it forward.  And they do!

The album opens with "Pong", a melody built of repeated three-note phrases which shift in to a circular five-note phrase.  Then Berne and Taborn take off soloing in and around each other, both building off the intensity of Formanek and Cleaver. The bassist leads off the expansive (14:07) "Rising Tensions and Awesome Lights" with a long solo, melodic and percussive, before dropping into a walking bass line while the saxophone and piano work through the melody.  Taborn's wide-ranging powerful, and exciting solo leads into Berne's exploratory jaunt supported by throbbing bass hand-held percussion.  The other 14-minute track, "Intro and Real Action", starts quietly before Cleaver takes over for a lengthy solo that builds in intensity but drops back into a quiet mode for Berne to begin his statement.  There's a bluesy feel in many of his short phrases but he soon begins to interact with the other musicians, making the music louder. Yet, the music never boils over.  This Quartet may have been the first of Formanek's groups to perform "The Distance"––it's such a lovely ballad with an excellent solo from Berne, strong counterpoint from the composer, and excellent colors created by the pianist and drummer.

"Pre-Apocalyptic" overcomes its supposed "lo-fi" beginnings, hence a tip of the hat to mixing and mastering engineer Nathaniel Morgan for making this music sound so alive.  Michael Formanek has always been an impressive musician plus he is also one of the better composers in Creative American Music.  At times noisy, at others subtle, this album documents a quartet at the height of its power. Let these sounds move you!

For more information about the bassist, go to www.amibotheringyou.com. To listen to more songs and purchase the recording ($1.00 of every sale goes to Black Lives Matter), go to https://outofyourheadrecords.bandcamp.com/album/pre-apocalyptic.

Here's a lengthy piece from the album:

Her Story, His Music, Our History

Photo: Jon Grönsoos

Wadada Leo Smith (born 1941) first picked up the trumpet at the age of 12 and it seems as if he hasn't put it down since. His studies Took him from his local high school to the U.S Army to Chicago and to Wesleyan University in the mid-1970s.  But his adventures in modern creative music and the creation of his own musical language began in Chicago in 1967 when he met Anthony Braxton, violinist Leroy Jenkins,, and later drummer Steve McCall. Mr. Smith also became involved with the Association For the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) which gave him a forum for his music and willing participants in making sure the music was played and heard. Over the decades that followed, his working and his teaching has taken him from Chicago to New Haven, CT, to CalArts in Santa Clarita, CA, and back to New Haven. He has traveled the world, played music with many different people and in many different styles but he always sought to educate his audience (whether the subject be the music of Miles Davis or the history of Black Music, nature, politics, Rastafarianism, and more. He has played solo, in many duos, trios, quartets, and up to large orchestras. His trumpet is always calling is to attention, making audiences pay attentions, his crisp, clear, tones rising out of his ensembles making us pay attention.

His latest album (to be released February 15), "Rosa Parks: Pure Love", is his eighth recording for TUM Records to be released since 2011 and continues Mr. Smith's work about Civil Rights that began with his brilliant 2012 Cunieform recording "10 Freedom Summers."  That album's material stretched from Dred Scott to Medgar Evers to JFK and LBJ to the Little Rock Nine to September 11, 2001, to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and beyond.  There was also a piece titled "Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, 381 Days."  That piece is here as well now with words,  performed by Min Xiao-Fen (voice and pipa) and the RedKoral (String) Quartet.  For this project, the music (which Mr. Smith calls an "oratorio") tells a specific story of how that victory over racism set the the stage for the growth of the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and the emergence of Dr. King.

Photo: R.I. Sutherland-Cohen

Besides Ms. Xiao-Fen and the RedKoral Quartet (violinists Shalini Vijayan and Mona Tian, violist Andrew McIntosh, and cellist Ashley Walters)  musicians on the album include the BlueTrumpet Quartet (pictured left and featuring Hugh Ragin, Ted Daniel, Graham Haynes, and Mr. Smith, the vocal trio Diamond Voices (Ms. Fen, Carmina Escobar, and Karen Parks) drummer Pheroan akLaff, and electronic musician Hardedge. Mr. Smith also injects into several pieces short excerpts of solo works created by Mr. Braxton, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. McCall, and himself taken from recordings made between 1969-1977.  Mr. Smith wrote all the lyrics save for one piece "No Fear" that is a direct quote from Rosa Parks (1913-2005).

If you lived through this time of American history, this music and these words contain great power.  If you were born after the the 1960s, this recording and these words will begin to educate you about what was happening in the Southern part of the United States.   It is also important that Mr. Smith acknowledges how this project - in fact, all of his work -  has its roots in the friendships, the improvisations, the concerts, that he, Mr. Braxton, Mr. Jenkins, and Mr. McCall played in 1967 (in the US) and in 1969 (in Paris, France).  Still, there is so much to take in, the various sounds, the voices, the blend of group sounds, the importance of what Ms. Parks accomplished with her act of defiance, and how this music invites us in to experience the fears, the anger, the hopes, the dreams, the victories, and the ongoing battles that still plague the United States over 63 years after Rosa Parks refused to move from where she was sitting on a Montgomery, Alabama, bus.

Photo: R.I. Sutherland-Cohen

"Rosa Parks: Pure Love" is an album to listen to all the way through, not to be excerpted, chopped up, or played piece by piece.  There is a flow from beginning to end, a storyline writ by music and words that comes to an end all too soon. This album cannot paint enough pictures to help you experience those days, how the African American community pitched in to defeat the racist policies of a city determined to keep them second-class citizens. Yet, this album opens (for some, reopens) doors that one must enter to understand how we got to now, how the politics of 2019 is built upon the responses and reactions to the events of the 1950s (and before) and the misguided beliefs of certain members of society that have been ingrained since before this country became United.  The enemy of this music is fear and ignorance - is it possible to create dialogue with music? This music, like most powerful music, needs to be experienced in a live setting. Wadada Leo Smith continues to create powerful music, continues to remind us of our history and to pay attention to the beauty as well as the contradictions that surround us. He reminds to also pay attention to those beliefs and insecurities that make us who we are and can lead us down the road to ruin or redemption.

For more information, go to wadadaleosmith.com.

Here's just a short taste of this amazing music:

A Great Lake

If one takes a close look at the ongoing career of saxophonist, composer, and activist Oliver Lake (pictured left), you'll see a person dedicated to not only celebrating the past but also always moving relentlessly ahead.  Coming out of St. Louis, MO, in the 1960s, a co-founding member of the BAG (Black Artists Group), he teamed up with Julius Hemphill, Hamiet Bluiett, and David Murray to form the World Saxophone Quartet, all the while touring and recording with his own ensembles.  Like Wadada Leo Smith, Anthony Braxton, Henry Threadgill, and other of his contemporaries, he developed a sound on his chosen instrument - alto saxophone - that immediately tells who he is upon the first notes.  His recorded output includes duos, trios, quartets, organ-based ensembles, steel pan groups, big band, and numerous releases with the collective Trio 3 (with Andrew Cyrille and Reggie Workman, an association well into its third decade).  Lake works with the trio Tarbaby (Orrin Evans, Nasheet Waits, and Eric Revis) and as a guest artist with other groups.

"Right Up On" (Passin' Thru Records) is his first recording with a string quartet but not his first with strings; he appeared in duo with violinist Leroy Jenkins (1932 - 2007), augmented his "working" quartet with a string quartet on 1979's "Shine!" (Arista-Novus), and released an album in 1997 "Movement, Turns, and Switches" with the Oliver Lake String Project.  This new album features FLUX Quartet (violinist Tom Chiu, violinist Conrad Harris, violist Max Mandel, and cellist Felix Fan), who Lake has worked with since 2002 and for whom he composed the majority of the pieces on the recording.  Like much of the composer's works, the 9 compositions have written and improvised sections plus the use of graphics and minimal notation.

The music certainly has a contemporary feel but hearkens back to the late quartets of Beethoven and to the string writing of Olivier Messiaen, Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, and George Walker.  The lovely sonorities of the title track, the twists-and-turns of "2016" (the pizzicato opening with its stormy feel that opens to a lovely pastoral melody that branches into several other directions, and the fascinating use of dynamic variations on "Sponge" (near silence to keening sounds to percussive effects and a surprising vocal interjection) illustrates how Lake pushes the musicians and challenges the audience.  The composer adds his saxophone voice to two tracks. On "Hey Now Hey", he joins the Quartet 1/3rd of the way playfully interacting by pushing his way into the conversation whereas on "5 Sisters" (dedicated to the memory of his mother and her four sisters), the alto leads the way. Listen closely to how the strings respond to the reed sounds and melody lines, to the improvisation, to how the cello adds such depth to the music, and to how the piece ends unresolved (to these ears).

The final track, "Einstein 100!", comes from 2005 and, of course, plays with space and time, with the finite and infinite, with solos and improvisations, and contains moments of delightful counterpoint. It is important to note here that Albert Einstein was an accomplished amateur violinist, often reaching for his instrument in moments if stressful research.  Nearly 21 minutes long, the music is dramatic, cathartic, sometimes soothing, occasionally puzzling (why the coughing?), but always searching, probing, looking inward and outward, and never settling for cliche.

Oliver Lake has been a creative force for over five decades and shows no inclination to stop pushing forward.  In FLUX Quartet, he has found musicians as daring as he, as willing to go deep into music and out on a limb as he continues to do.  Pay attention to"Right Up On"; even as the music challenges your expectations, it will also take you many places.

For more information, go to www.oliverlake.net or to passinthru.bandcamp.com/album/right-up-on.

Here is Oliver Lake with FLUX in concert: