Improvisation must be as old as music itself. After all, the first sounds we might recognize as musical arose from nothing. But of course, the tools have changed radically over the millennia, and the deeply conjoined trio of Dave Liebman, Adam Rudolph, and Hamid Drake uses anything they can to create something from nothing on their new CD, CHI. Saxophones, an array of percussion instruments from around the world, voices, electronics, and the occasional piano meet in a invigorating display of instant communication. Rudolph and Drake go back a long way together, to their time in the Mandingo Griot Society in the late Seventies. And since the late Sixties, Dave Liebman has established himself on hundreds of recordings as a free spirit and a reliably potent musical force. Their improvisations here range from under 3 minutes for the introductory Becoming to the quarter-hour of Emergence, and the titles they’ve assigned to their free-wheeling inventions are roughly descriptive of the music. Thus Flux is mostly a continuous changing flow with some intense drumming and an aggressive soprano saxophone solo. Continuum builds on Drake’s cymbal beat and Rudolph’s hand drums, with a keening saxophone emerging after two minutes and leading the way into a passionate musical conversation. The carefully sculpted Formless Form features Liebman’s slightly hesitant piano and steady but delicate percussion. Percussion dominates the first section of Emergence. Liebman enters with a sinuous soprano line, and the piece slowly builds to a exciting three-way improvisation. The sax drops out, the drummers engage one another, and the mood changes for a while into a more pastoral kind of feeling before revving up again and slowly drifting off. Whirl ends the program of nearly an hour with a piece centered on Rudolph’s sintir, a bass lute used by the Gnawa people of northern Africa. His swirling bass lines meld with Drake’s frame drum and lilting saxophone lines from Liebman to create a mellow conclusion to their encounter. Recommended.
RareNoise RNR102; Dave Liebman (ss, ts, p on *, wooden recorder) Adam Rudolph (hand drumset [kongos, djembe, tarija], p on #, sintir, multi-phonic vcl, perc, elec) Hamid Drake (d, vcl, frame drum, perc); NYC, May 8, 2018; Becoming#/ Flux/ Continuum/ Formless Form*/ Emergence / Whirl; 56:00. www.rarenoiserecords.com
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