Search - Bob Moses :: Fathers Day B'hash

You can sum up the artistically and spiritually eclectic drummer, composer, educator, and multi-instrumentalist Rakalam Bob Moses in three words: He was there. He was there in the early sixties as a teenaged sideman to Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and as a founding member of the pioneering fusion group Free Spirits, with Larry Coryell. He was there in the seventies when he co-formed another fusion ensemble, Compost, with Jack DeJohnette and worked with Pat Metheny and Jaco Pastorius. He was there in the eighties and nineties with his spectacular Gramavision LPs including When Elephants Dream of Music, and Time Stood Still.

Moses who also plays piano, kalimba, and log drum makes his debut on the Sunnyside label with Father s Day B Hash: an all-encompassing, nine-track recording that documents Moses all-world drumming, laced with subcontinentally-syncopated compositions exploring the bonds of family, the reality of death and the cycle of rebirth with tenor saxophonists/flutists/clarinetists Ommudra Thomas Arabia, Nick Videen, Luis Rosa, Sam Strickland (his life-long collaborator), and Petr Cancura; violinist Andrei Matorin, bassist Justin Purtill, and trumpeter Nicole Rampersaud.

The date [for the session] was June 16th 2006, Father s Day, Moses writes in the CD liner notes, the last for my father, Richard Moses (aka Shompa Lodro, the name given him by Spiritual Master, guitar genius Bhapuji Tisziji Munoz), who passed a month after this recording at the age of 87. For me, this adds a great deal of poignancy and importance to this date.

Indeed, the nine tracks represent a twilight toned, inter-dimensional space where multi-tempoed time signatures, and exotically textured melodic expressions equally and effortlessly reside in the realms of world music and free jazz. I had brought in a few heads/melodies to play, but decided to start with total freedom to see how well we could tune in to each other. Exhaltations #1-3 were the first three pieces played. The only compositional idea on Exhaltation #1 was the word love spoken quietly before we began. Before Exhaltation# 2, the word peace. For Exhaltation#3 (Fire Breath) the idea was to develop rhythmically from a single pitch (A flat). Other tracks are equally ingenious; the percussive pianism of Pollack Swings, the tabla-influenced Moses solo spotlight Drums For Shompa Lodro, the almost Ornette Coleman-ish Our Life, the spectral-stringed Duet For Violin and Squeaky Door and the Ganges-grooved A Pure and Simple Being.

All of his experiences, his brushstrokes of invention and dimension make Rakalam Bob Moses Father s Day B Hash a record of celebration; an aural document that highlights the journey of a musical world traveler that shows no sign of ending soon. In my work ... I ve tried to create an environment that encourages absolute freedom and spontaneity, where karmic gravities can be burned up and released.