Forgoing live music as part of an interminable effort to avoid the virus hasn’t been all bad. I’ve hunkered down with books in recent weeks. Many of the biographies and novels I spend hours reading every evening conclude with end-of-life reflections about lessons learned and meanings gleaned.

Similar ruminations dominate 2 Blues for Cecil. A trio of avant-garde elders- drummer Andrew Cyrille, 82, bassist William Parker, 70, and trumpeter Enrico Rava, 82- brood over the legacy of the late iconoclast Cecil Taylor on the album recorded 11 months ago in Paris.

More than a meditation on loss, 2 Blues for Cecil is a profound exploration of the essence of time and space. Yet tracks like "Ballerina" don’t function as background music. Reading is impossible even during the most serene moments of the riveting 2 Blues for Cecil.

William Brownlee

November 18, 2021

Album Review: William Parker and Patricia Nicholson- No Joke!

William Brownlee

November 18, 2021

The pleasures provided by year-end music lists are manifold. I relish the opportunity to display my (obviously superior) taste and disparage the (clearly inferior) selections of others. Yet the most rewarding aspect of combing through entries is encountering undiscovered sounds. Even though I listen to about two dozen new albums in their entirety every week, I only learned of No Joke! when I peeked at a rough draft of a colleague’s best-of 2021 list. Released three weeks ago by the illustrious ESP-Disk record label, the date led by the prolific bassist William Parker and his wife, the poet, choreographer and activist Patricia Nicholson, is a spiritual and musical companion to Irresistible Entanglements’ free jazz tour de force Open the Gates. Indignant and cacophonous, No Joke! is a dead serious call to action.

William Brownlee

May 10, 2021

Space Jams: An Appreciation of Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey

William Brownlee

May 10, 2021

Original image by There Stands the Glass.

I envy Deadheads. Not only are they part of an interactive community open to all like-minded enthusiasts of the Grateful Dead, their single-minded obsessiveness simplifies their leisure time. I fret over whether to invest four hours in a production of Parsifal (the last “major” opera I have yet to see), investigate the new 10-hour William Parker boxed set, luxuriate in Whodini’s "Five Minutes of Funk" or brace for a round of Kansas City punk. Deadheads merely have to decide which vintage show they’d like to hear next.

A fresh slate of old Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey recordings arouses a related form of reassuring nostalgia in me. The first two of the scheduled five albums were released on May 7. The previously unreleased 2008 studio album Winterwood is a cheeky update of Ellingtonian swing and juke-joint boogie-woogie. The Spark That Bled: Tour '05 includes live interpretations of compositions by the Flaming Lips and Charles Mingus, a representative reflection of the ensemble’s sensibilities.

A corresponding 27-minute documentary champions the manic intensity, wild eclecticism and unlikely evolution of the band from Oklahoma. I’ve long flirted with full-on fandom. I interviewed front man Brian Haas for Plastic Sax in 2009. The band’s ambitious concept album Race Riot Suite was my favorite album of 2011. Come to think of it, I could do a lot worse than listen exclusively to Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey. Deadhead? No man, but I’m perilously close to becoming a Fredhead.

William Brownlee

April 4, 2021

Album Review: Dopolarians- The Bond

William Brownlee

April 4, 2021

The extended quarantine, along with the savage relentlessness of time, enhances my appreciation of past experiences. While it didn’t seem significant 20 years ago, I’m immensely gratified I had the foresight to catch a set led by the esteemed saxophonist Kidd Jordan at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2001. And joining an audience of a few dozen for a set by the Brian Blade Fellowship during the Kansas City Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2017 now seems like an impossibly glorious dream.

Jordan, 85, didn’t participate in the recording of The Bond, the new album led by his band Dopolarians. And following the passing of the eminent drummer Alvin Fielder, Jr. in 2019, Blade joined saxophonist Chad Fowler, trumpeter Marc Franklin, pianist Christopher Parker, bassist William Parker and vocalist Kelley Hurt for the deeply spiritual free jazz date.

Blade and Parker are renowned masters, but their lesser known band mates in the latest version of Dopolarians are worthy collaborators. Unlike similar recordings in which free-form vocalizing is a distracting hindrance, Hurt’s contributions enhance the sacrosanct tone. The six culturally cognizant musicians strive for- and repeatedly attain- spiritual epiphanies. There’s almost no chance Dopolarians will ever make an appearance in Kansas City, but I’m confident the stars will align to provide me with another unforgettable experience in a more hospitable environment.

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I catch up with three Mike Dillon albums at Plastic Sax.