Four Pillars of Destiny

I find in general that free jazz vocalists have a hard road. What to do? It is not easy. Your being is out there, exposed, on the line.

Four Pillars of Destiny (Improvising Beings ib51) is a quartet date in the avant free jazz zone that features vocalist Maki Hachiya in congress with Shota Koyama on drums, Yuta Yokoyama on trumpet and Hugues Vincent on cello. We've encountered Hugues on these pages with many good things. The others I have heard-written about much less. But all four get something happening very interesting collectively on this album.

Maki uses her voice as an instrument and comes out with things uniquely hers. It took me a listen or two to get into the zone, but then I did. Vincent does what one expects from him, which is really worthwhile playing. Yuta plays a lot of trumpet and makes some excellent note-timbre choices. Shota drums with schooled freedom and energy. And together they make something truly worth hearing.

So I find myself transported after hearing this a few times.

How much free jazz do you need to own? My rule of  thumb is that if you want to hear something repeatedly then it belongs in your collection. That's me. You may not need 200 Evan Parker albums, but you need a full spectrum of that and alternatives, because each different set of players and lineups ideally gives you something different.

And I recommend Four Pillars of Destiny for that reason. It's different and it grows on you. But it is not something to play once and file away. Partly because once is not going to do it. Buy it to hear it! That I recommend! Happy autumn.