Search - William Parker, Joe Morris, Hamid Drake :: Eloping With the Sun

Not your typical Parker album.

T. Klaase | Orange Park, Florida United States | 06/16/2003

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This album seems to loose focus rather quickly. The songs sound a lot alike and the overall theme doesn't really change. Normally, William Parker puts out some high quality things (especially w/ Hamid Drake) so I was surprised to be disappointed with the compositions (if you could call them that). This is one of those CD's that's fun to listen to once and then ends up collecting dust on the shelf for the rest of your life. I haven't parted with mine but I sure wouldn't recommend it over other William Parker recordings. Try "Painters Spring" - that's a fabulous trio recording w/ Drake and Daniel Carter that's not to be missed!"

Aimless studio jamming

N. Dorward | Toronto, ON Canada | 11/29/2003

(2 out of 5 stars)

"A good group--Joe Morris, William Parker, Hamid Drake--but a pretty lacklustre disc. What went wrong? Well, pay attention to the instrumentation. Morris is on banjo & banjo-uke, instruments whose sharp attack doesn't flatter Morris's habitual neurotic hyperactivity--after a few minutes of his banjo-uke, I begin to feel like each note's a rubber band shot at my forehead. Parker clumps about on zintir (usually spelled sentir), twanging out simple patterns indefinitely--generous souls will describe this as "hypnotic", while less tolerent listeners will find it pretty tedious after a while. Hamid Drake sticks to frame drums, which he is a master at playing, but it does wear thin over the course of the album. The main problem, though, is the incredibly desultory nature of the album, which is the result of formless studio jamming edited into something like cosmetic shape via fade-ups and fade-downs. Two tracks seem to be chunks taken out of the same performance, with a bit in the middle edited out. There's even one brief track which is simply Drake noodling around while the other guys talk to the studio engineer--the conversation is quite audible. The one worthwhile piece on the disc is the last, "Dream", where Morris curbs his verbosity & focusses on a simple twiddly figure, developing it patiently over the track's length.Morris's enthusiasm for African traditional musics suggests this is territory he should explore more, but next time a little more focus & less self-indulgence would help. For completists only."

Highly odd but weirdly engaging

Jan P. Dennis | Monument, CO USA | 11/27/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This music consists of three instruments--zintir, which sounds rather like a tuned drum; a frame drum; and banjo--sharing a similar sonic palette. Thus, the tonal and sonic range is really quite narrow, giving the music, at least superficially, a rather static quality. A closer listen reveals an earthy and primitive aspect that, at least to these ears, is entirely engaging. The rhythms are really quite sophisticated, and the sonorities, though unusual and quite circumscribed, begin to work a strange magic after a few listens. Couple that with Joe Morris's Eugene Chadbourne-styled banjo, and you have a recording without an analogue. Probably closest are some of noted frame drummer Glen Velez's discs, although the soundscape here is at once both more primordial and avant-garde.Probably not the place to start with William Parker, a prolific, engaging, and forward-looking jazz bassist and composer, but certainly worth a listen. 4 and 1/2 stars."