Alliance for Improvised Music |
David S. Ware Quartet |
Preview: David S. Ware Quartet
David S. Ware was the first artist signed to the jazz division of Columbia records when Branford Marsalis took his position as the head of A&R there about a year ago. For those who have followed Ware's career, this signing was considered shocking, logical, and long overdue. It was shocking because few fans thought that the former "Tonight Show" bandleader was hip enough to dig Ware's music, much less dig it so much that he would insist that Ware be his first signing (with an option for seven records, no less!). It was logical because Ware's quartet is currently enjoying a large fan base bolstered by a great number of young people who have become interested in avant-garde jazz through their indie-rock idols. It was long overdue because Ware has been putting out some of the best Coltrane-influenced jazz albums of our time for over a decade, yet has not had any recordings with major label support.
Ware's quartet is full of talent, and is probably the most well-rounded, interconnected, and powerful working jazz quartet since Coltrane's classic group. William Parker's bass anchors the rhythm section with 20+ years experience, including (like Ware) a good amount of time spent as a part of the Cecil Taylor Unit. Pianist Matthew Shipp is often described as sounding like Cecil Taylor, but his combination of jazz and 20th century classical compositional styles is distinctly his own. Drummer Susie Ibarra is the newest member of the quartet. A student of the legendary Milford Graves, Ibarra replaced Whit Dickey about two years ago and added a greater sense of color and texture to the music. It is notable that both Dickey and Ware's original drummer, Marc Edwards, have gone on to pursue careers as leaders after leaving the quartet.
The current lineup is responsible for three albums including the just released Go See the World (Columbia). The other two, Godspelized (DIW, Japan) and Wisdom of Uncertainty (AUM Fidelity) are both incredible documents of this group. Both feature complex composition and some real blood and guts playing. However, the thing that strikes the listener immediately is the intense spirituality that permeates the music. The sprawling "Utopic" from Wisdom of Uncertainty is so filled with emotive force that one can not help but wonder how four different people can play such different lines with one coherent voice.
Their involvement together in common side projects gives us a hint of how they can communicate with such seeming effortlessness, and how close they really are. Shipp and Parker often duo together and are co-conspirators in such projects as Roscoe Mitchell's Sound and Space Ensemble, the Matthew Shipp Trio (with Ibarra), and more recently Other Dimensions in Music (where Shipp has been sitting in as a fifth "member" more and more often). Parker and Ibarra provide a rhythm section for Ibarra's husband Assif Tsahar, who has releases out on Silkheart and Eremite. All three have played with just about everyone in New York City's fertile downtown improv scene at one time or another.
With Matthew Shipp's long foretold retirement looking more and more like a reality (he has talked about it for years, and with 6 of his 9 contracted albums for HatArt already recorded, it looks like things are going according to plan), and the power of a major label firmly backing them, this show could be your last chance to catch one of the greatest quartets of our time in an intimate setting. Shipp and Parker's duo show in February 1997 at Nelson Music Room was incredibly beautiful and inspiring, and it happened to mark the beginning of the AIM mailing list. Many of you at this show rushed to sign an mailing list devoted to this music and ask for more. Come back and rejoice with us as the David S. Ware Quartet fills Nelson, our ears, and our souls with a beauty that is seldom experienced.
--Jeff Stern