By Gregg Miller
It’s a pleasure to hear three masters at work. Lunch-pail free jazz. Larry Ochs is famous from his work with the ROVA saxophone quartet, Charles Downs (aka Rahid Bakr) with Cecil Taylor (and so many more), and Joe Morris from many projects under his own name on guitar and then playing bass. On this recording, he’s strictly the bassist. (Check out an exciting, recent recording of Morris on guitar with Ben Hall on percussion here). Downs and Morris play together in the Flow Trio with Louie Belogenis (tenor sax), and the feel of that band (I am only familiar with Rejuvenation (ESP, 2009) is quite similar though more bluesy. Apparently, ESP brought these three together for this one-off. Though a first meeting, they play like old pals reunited.
Ochs has a gorgeous tenor tone, but I don’t really hear that on this recording. What stands out instead are his consistently inventive lines. Downs orchestrates the energy from the drum throne, and Morris’s bass & Ochs's sax combine to gives Downs’s rhythms their voicings, either punctuating the rhythms or blowing/acro-ing longer lines over them. The recording overall feels muddy, especially Morris’s bass, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You get the sense that they’re playing around the corner in the back, and what comes through is less detail and more of an overall feel. It’s quite relaxing, actually, for a completely free set. Musically, it’s less emotional than it is a continuous feeling from which ideas might be introduced or ended without losing the forward flow. Ochs gives the band its personality, Morris the pulse, and Downs the sharper hits of emphasis and stridency. It’s the kind of recording I like to read to. I can attend to it when I want, but it won’t be offended if my mind goes elsewhere for a while. Not too demanding, it’s never boring. It doesn’t stray from its concept. In fact, the separate tunes (especially the first four) seem all variations of one another. When Ochs finally lays out and Morris solos briefly (track 3) over some continuous, light thrumming, it’s a bit of a break—one sits up to take notice—but Ochs returns and we come back to that mood—tasteful and calming, inventive, building, receding, building, receding.
Found at Bandcamp:
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