COMPOSERS: Various
LABELS: Harmolodic/Verve
WORKS: Tone Dialing
PERFORMER: Coleman (as, violin, t); Badal Roy (perc); Al MacDowell (el b); Ken Wessel (g); Dave Bryant (kybds); Chris Rosenberg (g); Bradley Jones (dbl b); Denardo Coleman (drums, programming)
CATALOGUE NO: 527 483-2
This latest bout of controlled cacophony from the Prime Time electric band is pleasurably disconcerting. As with much of Coleman’s writing for Prime Time, a vortex of melody and rhythm is created where soloists draw in and drop out, ignoring the usual mores of chords and time.
The use of voices, chants, tabla and talking drum add hip-hop and worldly colours to the mix. Coleman’s alto, comfortable at the centre of the maelstrom, is expressive, articulate and wilful. It is nearly forty years since Coleman set the jazz world on its head with the release of Something Else!, his concept of ‘harmolodic’ improvisation; Tone Dialing shows he is still the music’s foremost free-thinker. Garry Booth