The 2011 Guelph Jazz Festival presented this quartet of legendary players--William Parker on bass, Alvin Fielder on drums & percussion, Joel Futterman on piano & flute, and Kidd Jordan on tenor saxophone--for an exemplary concert of jazz that uses free approaches to create melodic, inventive and soulful music, the expansive conversations sophisticated and wonderfully exhilarating.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2011 Country: USA Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at the Cooperators Hall, River Run Center, at the Guelph Jazz Festival, in Guelph, Ontario, Canada, September 11, 2001, by Lewis Melville.
"This is music of and for the ages. The great artists can evoke histories in moments, a few soulful gestures that anticipate things to come, or resolve what has gone before. The quartet performing this music engage history repeatedly, displaying encyclopedic knowledge in the service of intensive listening and interaction. Hearing it unfold is to witness the inexorability of history in motion."- Marc Medwin
"This is really fine, turbulent free jazz, self-released by the musicians involved (though it easily deserves to sit on a major label). Jordan plays with a fierce attack and bite, alternating tart continuous lines with sudden shrills and squeals, Futterman following him all the way: there are moments where one will play a phrase that the other echoes in joyous recognition and imitation, the band as a whole a thoroughly supportive unit, as befits their billing as 'The Creative Collective'. Check, for instance, track two, Futterman digging in with repeated clusters, Parker's walking bass accelerandos and decelerandos, Fielder's really pretty subtle drumming - there are moments where he almost seems to be playing nothing at all, but his continuous cymbal whispers and tappings and ridings keep things fluid and open in a way that a more bombastic approach would not - fundamentally unshowy, but extremely effective. I said 'free jazz': but this is far from simply a 'blow-out' - it's music of flowing episode and transition, moving from shrill peaks to declarative gospellizing and sudden reminiscenses of Coltrane (beautiful because unexpected, not mere acts of de rigeur homage) within the space of a few minutes, no need for any supporting themes or heads to get things going. When Futterman launches into a series of jazz chords, you can bet they'll be exquisite; and you can bet that they'll spur Jordan onto tongued R&B and/or church extrapolations. Then Futterman'll be inside the piano, Parker harmonic plucking, Fielder's fluttering percussion, Jordan's quiet wail. Parker's bowed bass solo, just right, melodic and solemn. And when the piano comes back in and Parker switches to a repeated accompanying figure, Fielder relaxed and unhurried behind them, wow. There's real patience and purpose here. And things turning on a dime, one figure that suggests boogie-woogie leading instead to a roiling pedall'd build-up or a dissonant sheaf of near-simultaneous notes or something else entirely: music that moves, in both senses."-DM Grundy, Eartrip Magazine