The meeting of these two tenor titans of the avant-garde sounds as good on disc as it promises to sound on paper. Add to the guest list the guru of contemporary creative bass William Parker and the dynamo percussion of Hamid Drake and you get a potent stew. As the album title suggests, this is present-moment fare, a meeting of creative minds on the canvas of silence that they fill with their Pollack-like drips, Rothko-esque gleaming colors, Larry Rivers quotes and Jasper Johns formalism. The whole thing — two discs totaling approximately two hours of music — was culled from appearances in Massachusetts (both at institutions of higher learning: University of Mass, Amherst and MIT, Cambridge) on April 1-2, 1999.
A legendary figure of the Chicago creative music scene and owner of the Velvet Lounge with an AACM pedigree, Fred Anderson is an open-voiced tenor saxophonist with lots to say. Fortunately for him and we the listeners, the others also have a lot on their minds and the criss-crossing conversations with fellow veteran tenor man Kidd Jordan and second-generation creative improv artists Drake and Parker is full of bold declaration and subtle nuance. In the seven untitled pieces, none of which is under ten minutes, textures vary, from solo bass or drums, to duo and trio passages and quartet epiphanies. When all four go full tilt, Parker's bass prodding, Drake's drums careening while both tenor men bluster and cry, exclaim and pronounce, testifying to the gods of creative inspiration, then there is a joyful sound, indeed, a celebration.
The appreciative crowd in disc two's MIT performance gives one a sense of the communication successes of the evening, even in the unaccompanied fiddle-sticks research of dean Parker, sawing and humming the bass's potential that Slam Stewart and Paul Chambers would probably smile approvingly to hear.
And while this music is striking for its daring explorations, from serene silences to sweet lyricism to raucous protests, it is performed by people who have been doing this for nearly 50 years. Despite their track record, as the liner notes remind us, Anderson and Jordan are far from household names, ever overlooked by the authoritative reference tomes. The reason is perhaps that critics and audiences haven't quite caught up with them, because they have been looking in the wrong places for the future of jazz, one version of which resounds in this disc. If you're thirsty for some meaningful listening, drink from this well and be refreshed.
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