| Are they the stepchildren of the underdog? Avant-guardian angels? 20-20 visionaries? Dancer/vocalist Patricia Nicholson, bassist William Parker, and friends are up to something, and they’ve been up to it for quite some time, bringing avant-jazz extravaganzas to New York City for over ten years. The new Vision Volume 3 CD/DVD, supplemented by Vision Festival Peace, a book-length collection of poetry, photos, prose, and scholarly discussion, is the most complete encapsulation to date of an ultimately indescribable, inexpressible experience: The Vision Festival.
The current package is culled from performances staged at the Eighth Annual Vision Festival (2003). The CD includes many Vision veterans, most notably William Parker himself, who appears on five of the nine tracks (and on six out of ten on the DVD). All of the cuts are excerpts, featuring particularly inspired solos or sections of a longer set. Of special interest on the CD are: Tenor saxophonist Fred Anderson repartee with bassistHarrison Bankhead’s on “Trying to Catch the Rabbit”; Tenor saxophonist Daniel Carter’s aggressive altissimo wailing over pianist Matthew Shipp’s chordal rumblings on “Surface & Dream”; Tenor saxophonist Kidd Jordan, William Parker and drummer Andrew Cyrille on “Quilt,” a plucking, clucking barnyard brawl; PaNic’s “Rise Up,” featuring the soulful, ethereal reeds of Joseph Jarman and the Mississippi mutterings of Cooper-Moore’s down-&-dirty diddly-bo; and Rob Brown’s intelligent and muscular tenor on “Resonance,” supported by the doubled-up double-basses of William Parker and Henry Grimes, one arco and one pizzicato.
The DVD features five of the same numbers as the CD, and additional material from three of the group sets, but there is minimal overlap. In spite of a number of technical problems (i.e. formatting, tracking, & synching), the sound quality is quite good and, more importantly, the added dimension of sight gives unfamiliar viewers a taste of the visceral, kinesthetic qualities of the Vision Festival experience, an inherent and inseparable component of these powerful performances. Violinist Billy Bang’s Hendrix-esque body-eubonics on “Song for Jeanne Lee,” vocalist Thomas Buckner’s wah-wah warbling along with reedist Roscoe Mitchell’s strolling conversation with Harrison Bankhead on “Improvisation No. 1073”; Patricia Nicholson’s vocalized dancing on “Rise Up”; and drummer Whit Dickey’s full-body commitment to the music on “Coalescence,” all demonstrate that there is more here than meets the ear. The DVD also includes taped interviews in which musicians and other key figures on the downtown scene, including poet Steve Dalachinsky and visual artists Yuko Otomo and Jo Wood Brown, expose the methods behind their sane-ness. |
ARTISTS
Coalescence One - Whit Dickey Quartet
Trying To Catch The Rabbit - Fred Anderson/Harrison Bankhead
Surface And Dream No. 1 - Matthew Shipp Quartet
War Crimes And Battle Scars - Iraq - Roy Campbell/Joe McPhee
Improvisation No 1073, No. 1 - Thomas Buckner Open
Quilt - Andrew Cyrille/Kidd Jordan/William Parker
Rise Up - Patricia Nicholson`s PaNic
Resonance No. 1 - Rob Brown`s Resonance
Bowl Of Stone Around The Sun - William Parker`s Jeanne Lee Project |
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