This is a newly discovered recording of a concert given in Bristol in 1992 and like everything else that Mr. Prevost releases on Matchless, it is extraordinary. This is the second disc from the Free Jazz Quartet, the personnel is the same as their earlier Matchless disc - it features the late Paul Rutherford on trombone, Harrison Smith on tenor & soprano saxes & bass clarinet, Tony Moore on cello and Eddie Prevost on drums. Similar in respect to the past with an eye to the future British percussionists Eddie Prevost and John Stevens both led bands and influenced those around them with their vision and playing. Both men led by example and helped to focus the playing of the members of their various projects. This, the Free Jazz Quartet is a great example since they are much more than just a free jazz quartet. Mr. Prevost has selected an excellent, well-balanced and explorative unit. Eddie's own playing is constantly shifting between rhythms, colors and shades similar to what the under-recorded Tony Moore does on the cello, more often plucking than bowing. Eddie plays with the utmost restraint for the first few pieces on this disc, as if he is using knitting needles on his cymbals and drums. Both horns (trombone & reeds) sail around one another in a most organic fashion. Eddie's mallet playing on "Summoning" is both spacious, careful and melodic, his solo and duo with the cello is quite stunning. When the horns finally come in it is perfection personified. It sounds like a conversations between ghosts or elders, with ideas being tossed back and forth effortlessly. It was sad to lose trombone legend Paul Rutherford a few years ago. This disc show that he was still an amazing improviser later in life and captures him and the rest of this magnificent quartet just right. Truly outstanding!
Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery
1992 (2010) MEMORIES FOR THE FUTURE| Review | by Thom Jurek |
This is matchless all right. There is almost nothing in the way of language a review of these astonishing recordings can say. It is easier to talk about them then to reveal what they are about musically or esthetically. Master percussionist Eddie Prevost -- who regards bowing strange things on metal objects percussion as well as drums, and right he is -- and saxophonist Evan Parker have recorded a double CD of duets that is so invigorating, confounding, and hysterically beautiful, no one could blame either man if he gave it up right now. There are nine selections between the two discs, ranging in time from nine and a half minutes to over half an hour. All of the titles are quotations from Francis Bacon, who would have been proud to have his spirit evoked during them. This isn't simply improvisation; this is investigation in the same way that Charles Olson's Maximus poems were investigations, in the same way that Pico Iyer and Bruce Chatwin's journeys were investigations, and in the same way that Stockhausen's Hymnen is an investigation. These pieces go after the rooted heart of sound itself, the veiled face of that magical echo that dwells inside and outside of everything, in order to find out how it spells its name and how it decides which hearty to beat. There are flurries and drones and conflicts and resolutions and downright mystical moments of pure Blakean illumination. This is music that's about so much more than music that it cannot be addressed in merely musical terms. This is the very case in point of Henry James' definition of art: this is the "thing that can never be repeated." | |