As If It Were the Seasons
What's so great about saxophonist Joseph Jarman is his sense of musical organization; there is an awesome patience to the procession of music here. Jarman plays alto sax, bassoon, fife, recorder, and soprano sax, while Charles Clark bows his cello dolefully, plucks it up spiritedly on bass, and manages to get some koto work in to boot. Drummer Thurman Barker is listed as playing "all kinds of drums." And when the group kicks out "Song for Christopher," dedicated to the late Christopher Gaddy, Jarman's one-time pianist, they're augmented by an orchestral collection of AACM greats that work furiously and beautifully together. The songs on this CD move like a collection of apparitions. Musicians from Jarman's group move in and out, pick up an assembly of various, small instruments, and then recede either into a wide-open space or to a dense, combustible fray of sounds.--Andrew Bartlett