The David Ware Quartet, 10/20/93
The Fred Hopkins / Diedre Murray Trio, 10/13/93
at the Middle East, Cambridge, Mass.
Reviewed by Scot Hacker
Shortly after a rehearsal in 1974, David Ware had a near-religious experience: he spontaneously heard the music of the spheres. Though he is not fully able to describe what he heard, those three to five seconds affected his life and his musical vision permanently. The traces of that short mystical event still filter down through every fiber of his being and into his tenor. Now collaborating in his musical advance toward the sacred are Matthew Shipp (p), Whit Dickey (d) and William Parker (b).
Ware plays and composes in what's left of the post-Coltrane continuum, a lineage which can be heard and felt both in his tone and in his mission. He plays with a very open throat, all of his bulk and muscle bulging out through valve holes, rolling his shoulders in yogic cycles as he breathes, aiming weighty songs at the sky. Tunes like "Third Ear Recitation" would be at home on records like "Om" or "Interstellar Space," with their long runs through all possible corners of a chordal labyrinth, their sense of a broad, pulsating expanse, and their defiance of gravity and classic form in pursuit of levitation.
The luminous William Parker brings the force of former partners Peter Brotzman, Billy Bang, William Hooker, and Bill Dixon to Ware's group. Both mother and monster to his poor bass, he works all registers, both above and below the bridge with seemingly unbridled imagination. Ten minutes of free hacksaw arco suddenly give way to plucked ostinato as gentle as though he were cradling an infant beneath the kindest of bows.
Where Dickey seems to stretch rhytms out, Shipp renders them more compact. The pair have worked together for a long time; their communion is evident in the way their bodies snake from respective thrones, out of the limited physcial space of their positions and into some synergy between them. While Dickey plays not on but into the kit, coming up at cymbals from beneath and around, Shipp is smoothly grounded in what is apparently a classical heritage. In fact, Shipp's foundations to the group often bleed into what sound almost like sonatas or fugues. He's like a patch of blue sky in a relentless storm, bringing the band's thick and turbulent upheaval into a kind of delicate peace with itself or, rather, manifesting the discreet compassion that lies at the heart of Ware's ethereal compositions.
Ware's ability to fill a horn entirely with pure force, to inspire simultaneous lyricality and instrumental potency in his colleagues, and the spiritual allegiance he brings to the music (a force largely absent, or at least scarce since Coltrane's passing) all mark him as the bearer of a devotional torch -- one in whose light we will be basking more often.
Also pulling strongly (if less obviously) from the heritage of Coltrane were Fred Hopkins and Diedre Murray. By pushing at the envelope of an instrument's physical capacity, and by transforming a stage into consecrated ground, the pair paid a certain kind of homage.
When there is no instrument at hand which is strictly chordal, nor strictly melodic, and neither is there an instrument locked into the discrete periodicity of frets, keys, or valves, what is left is a swelling continuum of sound without distinct edges, corners, or physically imposed boundaries. Two strings (Hopkins on bass, Murray on cello), kit (Newman Baker), and the occasional trombone of Bill Lowe (an ex-Hopkins colleague) delivered just this kind of swirling melee.
By necessity, cello and bass were used here in non-traditional ways, as the strings' thrust moved from that of supporting role to that of lead and strummed chordal accompaniment. The envelope was pushed even further by both players' use of some rather unusual techniques, such as the scraping at of wood, the rasp of fingernails on strings, and playing the electronic pickup directly by tapping and scraping percussively at its surface. Interestingly, these perhaps aggressive-sounding techniques ended up sounding musical, never like diversions.
Murray is a beacon in the tiny world of jazz cellists. She has taken the physical ability of the cello to deliver spontaneous precision, and nuanced her approach to a level of dynamic delicacy. The lissome warble of her bow upon the strings reminded me of the feet of a water skeeter hanging aloft on the surface of a pond. Gliding, barely denting the surface, her bow moving in broad circles of undulating grace, she would suddenly drill down into the melody, the skeeter's feet plunging through the water's skin and into its depths. Murray's compositions were the more drawn out, skittering, floating, while Hopkins own, and the several covers performed, were more segmented and decisively defined.
Coltrane's "Equinox" was certainly one of the high points, with Hopkins thrusting the meditation into a slow and deep groove initially, Baker leaping off the edge with it much later. Murray and Hopkins traded the role of Steve Davis between them, one pushing while the other pulled. Baker proved a solid foundation for the pair, often rolling a gentle mallet turmoil through the background, complementary to the night's tenor of tightly woven, woody thickets. His attack is highly musical, perfectly tuned, cymbals matching perfect pitch with the upper cello register.
Trombonist and former bandmate Bill Lowe (Hopkins, Murray, Baker and Lowe have worked together in various configurations in the bands of Muhal Richard Abrams and Henry Threadgill) joined the stage for several numbers, drawn into their graceful, elastic weave. Even when sight reading a fast-paced catwalk with eyes wide open, Lowe sounded like old family because of his close proximity to the heart of Hopkins' music. When Lowe announced that this performance was also a celebration of Hopkins' birthday, the audience joined in an off-key but heartfelt round of "Happy Birthday" as Hopkins laughed in embarrassment.
[Writers] [Birdhouse]