Label: ESP-Disk, 2021
Personnel - Allen Lowe: alto and tenor saxophone; Matthew Shipp: piano; Kevin Ray: bass; Gerald Cleaver; drums.
The new free jazz quartet East Axis explores different moods and forms of narrative in their music, and the fun of it, besides the incredible sounds that connect with artistic purpose, is that you are never sure exactly where it will take you. The group is comprised of Allen Lowe, a saxophonist and music historian known for associate acts with Julius Hemphill, Roswell Rudd and David Murray; pianist Matthew Shipp, whose originality, creativity and immeasurable energy have been marking the modern jazz for decades; bassist Kevin Ray, a former Reggie Workman’s protégé who is perhaps the less known of the four; and Gerald Cleaver, a formidable eclectic drummer with a penchant for alternative grooves.
The group opens the album with an intriguing mood, searching with expectation on “A Side”, where the mind-boggling pianism of Shipp stands out from the subdued backing rhythm of bass and drums. The saxophone, dancing confidently on top of the texture, swings in its own way, never by the books but also never stepping totally outside. Near the end, after a groove marked by percussive bass plucks and patterned piano stimulation, he conjures Monk with aplomb.
“Oh Well I Forgot That” finds the quartet in an impetuous rush created by relentless sounds mounted with jubilance and comfort. Conversely, the following “Social Distance” denotes a more cautious approach (as the title suggests) with sinuous sax melodies running over a controlled, if austere, rhythmic flux. This dispirited atmosphere is dismantled with the satisfaction conveyed on “I’m Cool With That”, a colorful blues populated with intrepid saxophone lines and a slowly built piano statement with less outside moves than expected but injecting some Monk angularity for accentuation.
All four members are focused on the communication and how to respond better to one another, and they finish off the record at their most inventive by crossing a sea of attractive textures and rhythms on “One”, a 28-and-a-half minute excursion developed with ambiguity and precision in its episodes. The poetic frisson of these proceedings often channels Ornette Coleman and Anthony Braxton and, occasionally, Steve Lacy.
With such players, a certain level of transcendence was expected, and the group delivers with both elegance and vitality.
Grade A-
Favorite Tracks:
01 - A Side ► 04 - I’m Cool With That ► 05 - One