Arcana - 1996 - The Last Wave

Arcana

1996 

The Last Wave

01. Broken Circle (11:04)
02. Cold Blast (8:17)
03. The Rattle of Bones (7:57)
04. Pearls and Transformation (16:27)
05. Tears of Astral Rain (8:06)
06. Transplant Wasteland (8:32)

Derek Bailey / guitar
Bill Laswell / bass
Tony Williams / drums

Recorded and mixed at Greenpoint Studio, Brooklyn, NY in April, 1995.

Saying who is best among great musicians is moot and subjective. Any landmark musician has strengths that are fact and styles that you like or don't.

Now, let me reverse my idiot self and say why Anthony Williams was the best jazz drummer. He had the flexibility and musicality of Max Roach, the rhythmic invention of Elvin Jones. The agility of King Crimson Mach '69's Mike Giles.

You wanna know who else you can compare Anthony Williams to? Sir Paul McCartney. Like Paul, Williams did things on his instrument that no one else could think of in a thousand years. Listen to some of William's improvisations. Who dreams of fills and random movements like that? One Mr. Anthony Williams

 have only told you one half, the other being that Williams was always looking for new, edgy music to play, and I have no doubt that if he had not died from medical malpractice in 1997, he would be doing jazz as hip to 2010 as he did to 1964, 1969, 1978, and 1997.

"Tragic" is an over used word in the death of those well known, but in William's case, it truly was tragic. The amount of music we all missed out on is impossible to calculate.

But if not that, we have this. Arcana was one of William's last projects with guitar player Derik Baily and bassist Bill Laswell. If the 1960s had its free jazz, Arcana is free jazz on the other end of the time machine, with musicians having lived past rock, funk and fusion,

This is almost completely free, but two things strike me as fascinating: the ability of older musicians to make music this fresh and with such a sharp edge, and the ability of them to make it completely as it happens. More than 1960s Coleman or Coltrane-the only other place you can find music this good and this free is Cecil Taylor--this is totally improvised: it is ALL about the interaction of the trio--there is virtually no writing here- and the results are simply miraculous, for free jazz of ANY era sounds from the trio of Derek Bailey on guitar, Bill Laswell on bass, and Tony Williams on drums -- a group of players we thought we'd never see together on record, but who join up surprisingly well on this sharp-edged set recorded during some of Laswell's most experimental years! Bill's clearly driving the train on this one -- as the record's filled with those dark turns and moody passages that his fuzzy freaky bass could turn out so well -- and his approach definitely pushes Bailey into more ferocious territory, which Williams is only happy to follow himself! Given that Tony's own work was relatively straight at the time, the set really returns him to his experimental roots -- but with a very different flavor than before.

Dark improvised free jazz session that will not reveal its harsh beauty to the listeners who cannot let go. Tony Williams is on top form here, and it's been a while. Too sad he left the building.