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David S. Ware String Ensemble
Threads
(Thirsty Ear Blue Series)
review by Nate Dorward
2003-09-09
David S. Ware has entered a restless phase of his career, as witness the swerves since he and Columbia's bean-counters parted ways: the experiment with synths on Corridors and Parallels was followed by his album-length gloss on Sonny Rollins' Freedom Suite. Threads marks yet another change of direction: Ware's role on the disc is largely as a composer and arranger, though he also plays tenor on one ensemble track and on two brief tenor/drum improvs, "Weave I" and "II." He calls this augmented version of his quartet the "String Ensemble": newcomers Daniel Bernard Roumain (on violin) and Mat Maneri (on viola) mesh with bassist William Parker and on several tracks with the synthesized strings of Matt Shipp. The title track is a through-composed piece for this string quartet alone; on the other pieces the band is completed by drummer Guillermo E. Brown. All told, Threads counts as one of Ware's strangest, most exploratory and unexpected albums.
It's also a complete turkey. "Uneven" would be the politest word for it. There are a number of quite decent moments, which end up seeming like towering peaks next to the deep and generously proportioned troughs that surround them. Perhaps the best way to survey the territory is to deal with the six tracks on the disc in ascending order of length, which maps closely to a list in descending order of merit:
"Weave I" and "II," each 3 minutes long. These are essentially punctuation marks in the programming, the first marking the disc's halfway point, the second serving as a coda. Brown is widely maligned among Ware fans, but actually his unfettered, falling-over-itself drumming is quite effective in this classic free-jazz format; Ware certainly seems quite game.
The opener, "Ananda Rotations" - 6 1/2 minutes. Sombre stuff, this is a bit of a face-pulling exercise, but it comes off for the most part. The fiddles and synthesized strings make for a heavy, hamfisted emotionalism - the piece would fit right in as background music to some hectoring documentary on "Our Dying Planet" or the like - but Ware's tenor contribution gives genuine dignity to the proceedings.
"Sufic Passages" - 9 minutes of what the liner notes optimistically refer to as a "propulsive" groove (try "lumbering"). Parker and Shipp grind out a stiff and unvaried riff (rumor has it Ware wanted more, but union regulations forbade cruel and unusual musical punishment); Brown is oddly enough at his clumsiest on this track despite its quite straightforward 4/4. Maneri and Roumain do their best whirling-dervish act, but there's little they can do with material this leaden and repetitive.
Endurance test, round two: "Carousel of Lightness," 9 minutes of nothing much happening. Soothing, pretty, slightly creepy music, listening to it is like being stuck indefinitely in the waiting room of a dentist's office in outer space. If it were only shorter it'd be quite nice, actually, but like "Sufic Passages" it's absurdly overextended: I've rarely watched the "time left" counter on my cd player with such mounting incredulity.
So you passed rounds one and two? Then you're ready for Endurance Test #3: "Threads" itself, for strings and synthesizer alone. It begins with a rich, full, vibrato-laden chord. Lovely indeed, and it's followed by a different but equally rich, full, and vibrato-laden chord, before the strings return gracefully to the first rich, full, vibrato-laden chord. Enjoyed that? Good, because you'll have to sit here listening to this two-stroke engine churn out schmaltz for 13 minutes. This is musical wallpaper of a particularly grating kind.
So here's the brutal math: 45 minutes, 6 tracks, of which at least half is completely useless - which isn't to vouch too strenuously for the merits of the other half. The production is very obtrusive - themix is completely different for every track, and often surreally skewed (on "Ananda Rotations" Ware and Brown sound like they're in another room) - which is just about the last thing the disc needs: it's already inconsistent enough, and such fussy touches aren't going to make up for the album's many woes. For Ware completists only.
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