David S. Ware / Apogee, Birth of A Being (Expanded), 1977

How much we have lost with the passing of tenor titan David S. Ware is especially clear when you listen to the expanded edition of his first recording as a leader in 1977 with his trio Apogee, Birth of A Being (AUM Fidelity 096/97 2-CDs).

Plain and simply, it is a remarkable recording. The original, shorter version was put out by Hat Hut as an LP in 1979. And now for the first time we hear the complete session. Joining David's tenor is the energetic all-over piano of Cooper-Moore and the virtuoso force of drummer Marc Edwards. This is the right band for David's avant-spiritual power debut as each member of the group comes through with performances that parallel Ware's in their creative onslaught of significant sound.

For the expanded version of the album we get the Hat Hut material remixed plus a full CD of additional music, including a worthy alternate take of "Prayer," the lengthy numbers "Cry" and "Stop Time, a brief "Ashimba" (Cooper-Moore on his hand-made xylophone) and a Ware unaccompanied solo tenor spot. Put that together with the original released version and you have a hugely impressive date, with David on fire with passion, energy and that great big sound he had already mastered.

Marc Edwards by then had perfected his very busy, driving and dense free drum style (he and David were key figures in Cecil Taylor's band during this period) and Cooper-Moore had developed a strong presence as a convincingly engaged, extroverted and very musical splatter-note pianist. They form with David a highly combustible unit at its peak, absolutely driven and devastating in their expressive power.

The music goes from strength-to-strength in a blazing meteoric flight across the firmament. This is some of the most engaging free jazz of its time, without a doubt. It's been 30 years since the original LP went out of print, but the time is most definitely now for a re-appraisal of this trio and the full impact of the complete session. It is phenomenal music!

Jeff Shurdut, Gene Janas, Marc Edwards, Bound and Gagged

Jeff Shurdut has been very profilic in the past decade or so, mingling and co-projecting with many of avant jazz's finest. This one, Bound and Gagged (Improvising Beings ib 11) with bassist Gene Janas and drummer Marc Edwards, is one of his most unusual and innovative.

What strikes you about the album on repeated listenings is how tightly sequenced it is. There is a great variety of musically out combinations, skronk guitar, contrabass, and thrashing drums, vocal outburst, sax and drums, drum soliloquies, bowed tones, and more, all coming at you in a rather exciting series of quickly moving segments. It has a bit of a punk attitude, something of the Flying Luttenbachers about it yet more devoted to the free zone.

Jeff is impressive on guitar and sax without sounding schooled, Gene has an all-over bass throb that fits perfectly and he gives us some nice moments of arco color too, and Marc's drumming is advanced and very impassioned.

It's a devilishly progressive free sort of program that's not out to impress you so much with how hot the players are as with what kind of sound-art they can pull together with spontaneity, depth and contrast. Whooo!