William Parker - Serving An Evolving Humanity

Gianni Lenoci: piano, prepared piano, voice
Vittorino Curci: alto & soprano saoxphones, megaphone, voice
Marcello Magliocchi: drums & percussion
William Parker: bass

This album starts in the best of free jazz traditions: full blast ahead, with a piano that seems to hammer all keys simultaneously, wild sax-playing and a rhythm section that goes totally berserk. The band is William Parker on double bass, Gianni Lenoci on piano, prepared piano and voice, Vittorino Curci on alto and soprano, voice and megaphone, and Marcello Magliocchi on drums.

The "berserk" piece is suddenly harnessed into a repetitive pattern by Curci, with Lenoci following and releasing the tension too, and the piece turns into calm surroundings creating an atmosphere like rain dripping from the leaves after wind and storm have gone, and the piece goes even quieter, with the playing turning minimal, full unexpected turns, sensitive and raw, until all hell breaks loose again, detonating in your ears, relentlessly, ... and becomes even quieter afterwards ... yet somehow the tension increases.

The second piece of the suite starts with Parker playing arco and pizzi simultaneously, setting the scene for an eery and slow avant-garde piece, yet full of a bluesy soul. I am less convinced of the shouting by Lenoci (we could have done without), yet the rest of the piece is staggering : Curci's alto is wailing with a rare expressivity.

The last part of the suite is totally minimalistic, with Lenoci plucking his strings, carefully, cautiously, precisely, Parker playing his shakuhachi, later his shenai, adding interesting world music textures.

It took me some time to get into this album. At first listening it sounded somewhat unfocused, with no real sense of direction or coherence, yet after listening several times in its entirety, the music on the album does evolve, it does flow, and the three pieces do form one unity. There is a lot to listen to, and its worth listening to, more than several times. Enjoy! (from freejazz)

2010 SERVING AN EVOLVING HUMANITY (rapidshare/mediafire)