Lacy-Rudd...Beautiful
John C. Graham | toronto, ontario Canada | 06/13/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"It only took a few spins to realize that this two disc set is a contender for one of the decade's best releases. You get close to two hours of live music featuring Lacy and Rudd with Lacy's long standing band mates-drummer John Betsch and bassist Jean-Jacques Avenel. Five tunes were recorded June 19th, 1999 at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam, two tunes from April 4, 1999 when the band played in Tucson, Arizona and another two from New York's Iridium on August 9, 2002. All the music is recorded well and everyone gets a chance to stretch out. There are 6 Lacy compositions, one Rudd tune, a Monk, and a Nichols.
Mr. Avenel's bass is strong and articulate, as usual, and he walks with authority in this free-bop context. He'd spent many years as Lacy's first choice bassist, adding his distinctive touch to many fine recordings. Mr. Betsch is a wonderfully inventive drummer, always embellishing tastefully, accenting and punctuating purposefully and in a subtle way. He had also been Lacy's first choice percussionist, and, for many years, played the role to perfection on stage and in the studio. As a rhythm unit, these guys have a great jazz feeling and can really swing hard, setting this one ahead of the pack.
Lacy was one of those guys who was instantly recognizable on his chosen instrument. He's left us essential recordings from six decades. He was, without doubt,an artist of the highest order, someone whose life itself was the embodiment of creativity, and on these live recordings you can hear that process. His solos were always of a probing nature, always testing and marking limits, looking for different passageways to stimulate our cortical matter. By the 2002 session he does, at some points, sound slightly frail, yet the solos are still keen and absorbing. The tunes are all familiar to Lacy collectors. It's the freshness that's appealing.
Roswell Rudd is, in my opinion, the real star of the show. He just sounds brilliant on every tune. His soloing is smart, exciting, boisterous and robust. He can cover the history of the horn with a joy of purpose, employing mutes,updated tailgating techniques and outside tonal variations. He really is wonderful to hear on these discs and definetely adds a welcome spark of enthusiasm.
Lacy and Rudd had a relationship that dated back to the fifties when both were involved with more traditional(dixieland)playing and players. They both had a healthy curiosity for exploring some of the newer developments in jazz. Lacy played in Cecil Taylor's mid-fifties band while Rudd later played with Archie Shepp and John Tchicai as well as Cecil Taylor. In the early sixties,both players formed a little cooperative band called 'school days' to explore the music of Thelonius Monk. Dennis Charles was the drummer and the bass chair was held by many including Henry Grimes-who played on all but two cuts of the famous School Days recording(now on Hat Hut).
The bonus material-23+minutes-comes from demos the 'school days' band did back in 1962. It's Rudd and Lacy with Dennis Charles on drums and Bob Cunningham on the bass doing 3 Monk tunes and 1 Cecil Taylor tune, all of it beautifully recorded in a New York studio. It's priceless to finally hear this material. The band sounds like the School Days cd, the arrangements and solos all superb.
This is a 2 disc set of live and studio performances that stands above most of what is offered as free jazz today. That's not to say that there's nothing worthwhile out there, it's simply saying that this is a cut above. Master musicians at the top of their game...ESSENTIAL"
Track Listings (6) - Disc #1