This quartet’s exploration of the music of Ahmed Abdul-Malik (1927-1993) continues on a 5CD set. Consisting of Pat Thomas on piano, Joel Grip on double bass, Antonin Gerbal on drums, and Seymour Wright on sax, the group does not cover Abdul-Malik – instead, they employ his influence as a loose musical and spiritual set of guidelines for their own creations.
While a working group for close to a decade, [Ahmed] came to wider notice with a recent pair of recordings on Astral Spirits, 2021’s Nights on Saturn (Communication) and 2024’s Wood Blues. Giant Beauty is a set of live recordings from 2022’s Fifth Edition Festival for Other Music in Stockholm. Each disc is a single 45-50 minute track that takes a different Abdul-Malik piece as a starting point for group reimagining.
Despite the length and variety offered by this release, a few general techniques or patterns are present throughout. Most notable is the interaction between Thomas and Wright, with the former playing in his signature dense and percussive style while the latter provides bursts of gritty notes on the alto. Wright’s wailing is an unconventional counterpoint to Thomas’s classicism. The rhythm section typically keeps up a frenetic pace, with Gerbal’s busy drumming and heavy use of snare, while Grip mixes uptempo passages with the occasional walking bass line. Thus, there are a few “traditional” jazz moments, but that is not the focus.
At various points across these long improvisations, the group comes together in a jagged rhythm that repeats in a short cycle (sometimes just a set of 2-4 notes). While an immediate reaction might be that these sections are harsh, the rawness is quite energetic, especially as they slowly mix short motifs and solos into these patterns. Thus, at their finest moments, [Ahmed] takes the listener to the edge but falls just short of being overwhelming.
Overall, this is a wonderful document of a modern jazz group pushing boundaries while acknowledging their forebears. Highly recommended.
Avant Music News 