Search - William Bass Quartet Parker :: Requiem

Shadowy sea creatures hurtling through outer space

Pharoah S. Wail | Inner Space | 06/29/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Charles Gayle - alto saxophone

Henry Grimes - bass

Alan Silva - bass

Sirone - bass

William Parker - bass



Recorded on 5/31/04 at the 9th Vision Festival in NYC.



Oh, oh yes! A churning, simmering cauldron of deep space and sonority feathered, caressed, scraped and psychedelicized by the alto saxophone of Charles Gayle.



Add this to the list of brilliant dedications to Peter Kowald (though this one is also for Wilber Morris). As I think I said about The Victoriaville Tape, you should listen to this one at night, in the dark. Music for altered states? Oh you bet, but not alcohol. Heck, forget that. This music alters your state by itself. Gayle ranges from the brilliant nitrous chicken to wavering, fluttering, unfolding streams of sound that caress and sometimes dart through the shadowy, monolithic creature (the 4 basses) like a tuna herds and zips through large schools of bait fish.



This one is beautiful and weird. Is it for everyone, though? Well, no. There are no vamps, no basslines, no heads, no dance grooves, no waiting until it's your turn to solo. This is ensemble improvisation. It's entirely "out" but without being any sort of shrieking, cathartic "Free-Jazz" as many people seem to think it all is. It's high-level, group-mind, interactive creation. Requiem just IS. No labels are going to cover it.



Still, this is a very different experience than Victoriaville Tape, another 4-bass album, After You've Gone, or Lifting the Sanctions. I'd say it's the best of the 4.



Calm, collected and shimmering with points where the cauldron bubbles over into territory that could be the better, new and more haunted filmscore to one of your strange silent films like Dr. Caligari or Haxan (Witchcraft Through the Ages) - Criterion Collection, this is an album for people who can let sound take them on an internal journey. Journeys governed by the emotions inherent in the sounds of the great ones. "Sound" free of the supposed rules and conventions of so much "music".



I hate doing this but I feel I must. I certainly wouldn't spend $40 on one cd that is still in print, and I know there will be people who see this listed here for this price and will skip past it. Just know that this fantastic, unique album is out there elsewhere for normal prices. "You just gotta poke around.""