The Prince is Aloft, Electra, 60th Day of Hagwinter, 524 M.E.

 

Another ecstatic walk today, but of a very different nature from Monday's endorphin-drenched hike. For one thing, I got a late start today so I walked my local Beltline trail instead of the Cochran Shoalstrail near the Chattahoochee River. For another, part of the pleasure of last Monday's walk was listening as I went along to the album Taking Turns by ECM artist Jacob Bro over a pair of headphones. I wore the headphones again today, but listened to music of a completely different nature, the 58-minute live set, Wood Blues, by the forward-thinking jazz ensemble [ahmed].

[ahmed] is named for NYC bassist, oudist, composer, educator and philosopher Ahmed Abdul-Malik, who fused aspects of American, Arabic and East African thought, ethics, meanings and beliefs in open and experimental ways.

Wood Blues opens sounding like a bebop blues-jazz hybrid, with boogie-woogie piano over a walking bass line. The piano sounds increasingly like something Thelonious Monk might have played as it progresses, and after a while the alto sax of Seymour Wright joins in, playing repeated simple, sometimes one-note sequences. The repetition builds in intensity and suspense (how long will this continue, and what will come next?), and amazingly they keep going and going, building up into almost unbearable levels of intensity. At times, the whole structure of repeated riffs finally collapses in on itself into free-jazz chaos, but the band quickly finds a new pattern in that chaos and starts repeating that riff. Over and over. The excitement built up in this live recording is evident by the audience's audible reactions - the crowd, it seems, was going wild, cheering and hooting and hollering.

I probably covered at least three miles listening to Wood Blues today, and totaled 7.4 on the walk.  

[ahmed] will be playing at next year's Big Ears festival, and I can't wait to experience them live.