Wailers is the fourth album so far of Portuguese sax hero Rodrigo Amado and his American super-quartet, This Is Our Language - Amado on tenor sax (on the left channel), Joe McPhee on tenor sax (on the right channel), double bass player Kent Kessler, and drummer Chris Corsano. The album was recorded during the quartet’s European tour that introduced its second album, A History of Nothing (Trost, 2018), at the same studio where it recorded its first and second albums, Namouche Studios in Lisbon, in October 2019. The quartet’s third album, Let The Free Be Men (Trost, 2021), was recorded live at Jazzhose in Copenhagen in March 2017. Amado released this archival recording on his own label.
Amado frames the quartet’s free jazz ethos of resistance, truth, and transformation with a quote from American poet, writer, teacher, and political activist Amiri Baraka (aka LeRoi Jones), titled “Wailers”:
"Wailers are we
We are Wailers. Don't get scared. Nothing happening but out and way
out. Nothing happening but the positive. (Unless you the negative.)
Wailers. We Wailers. Yeh, Wailers. We wail, we wail.”
The music was credited to the quartet, except one piece, the heartfelt “Theory of Mind III”, dedicated by Amado (who plays here the alto sax and bird water whistle), Kessler, and Corsano to McPhee. This Is Our Language offers free jazz, entangled with free improvisation in its most intense, ecstatic, poetic, and spiritual form, totally possessed by the music of the moment and performing it as seriously as their lives, while also aware and respectful of the great legacy of free jazz. The quartet’s energy is instantly absorbed by the listener and has a powerful, motivating, and emotional impact, transforming John Lennon’s “Power to the People” and Patti Smith’s “People Have the Power” into an actual reality. It reminds us, as Baraka wrote, of the constant need to resist common evils and keep working for the greater good.
Amado and McPhee sound like spiritual brothers who keep feeding each other with fiery ideas and touching melodic-soulful themes, as if they have discovered an endless well of sacred songs. You can repeat their deep conversations on “Hot Folk” and “Subterranean Night Color” time and again and still wonder at this inspired magic. Kessler and Corsano know when to push forward with manic, propulsive energy and when to open the interplay for an introspective dynamics that highlights the distinct voices of this quartet and its profound camaraderie. Just listen to Kessler’s masterful bowed solo that introduces “Violent Souls” and Corsano’s rolling drums, and the way they together build the tension for Amado and McPhee's soaring solos. This great album ends with the soulful, fiery blues” Blue Blowers”.
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