David S. Ware, Onecept
Spellbinding energy and celebratory surprises
A successful recent kidney transplant delayed this planned celebration of David S. Ware's half-century of playing the sax by an extra year, but the extraordinary health, vigor and cohesion of Onecept made it worth the wait. For only the second time in two decades, Ware eschewed any prior rehearsal before heading into the studio for on-the-spot improvisations. Working with his longtime bassist William Parker and the ingenious drummer Warren Smith (the same ensemble, absent guitarist Joe Morris, who appeared on Shakti from 2009), their interplay includes more varied textures and reflective interludes than usual along with the torrid phrasing and robust tonality that put Ware in lineage with John Coltrane and Albert Ayler.
Taking a page from Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Ware has begun branching out from his customary, stalwart tenor, to play the alto-like stritch and the soprano-oriented saxello. The stritch is deployed to great effect contrasting the heavy bottom of Parker's bowed bass and Smith's gong and tympani on "Book of Krittika," which ends with long, sustained notes from Ware. "Wheel of Life" is bookended by solos from Smith and interspersed with short solos from Parker that generate an internal symmetry and rhythmic pulse. "Desert Worlds" is an immediate highlight, with Ware's saxello taking on an Indian-like modulation early before moving to some thrusted clusters of notes as the trio's collective intensity rises, the tension remaining high during Ware's long and agile unaccompanied solo, then cascading home as the bass and drums join back in with entropic elan. The longest of Onecept's nine songs, "Astral Earth" serves as a relatively placid waystation in the middle of the proceedings, with Smith's tympani adding to spatially resonant mix. Another piquant change of pace and texture is "Bardo," blessed by bow work from Parker that may even eclipse his typically high standard of industrious creativity.
We've grown to expect the sort of spellbinding energy that gives heft to the typically overwrought term "transcendent" when it comes to outings by Ware. Onecept delivers that and few more celebratory surprises to boot.
