Duo Exchange: Complete Sessions

It is inarguable that the 1967 duo sessions between saxophonist John Coltrane and drummer Rashied Ali that produced the posthumously released Interstellar Space were influential to succeeding generations of jazz musicians. It places both players on the high wire of improvisation without a net and besides, its a cheap way to record. What is surprising, as evidenced by this album and subsequent dates in Alis discography, is how prominent the format would become in his career and musical thought process. Released in 1972 on Survival Records, the independent label founded by Ali and saxophonist Frank Lowe, Duo Exchange appeared nearly two years before Interstellar Space. The label was subsequently operated by Ali until his death in 2009; it has been revived by his family for the purpose of reissuing its catalog and vault material. Duo Exchange (the first leader date by either man) is among the most intense, canny articulations of the drums/saxophone duo ever recorded. Ali and Lowe had been leading and playing with various groups after Coltranes death. These projects included both men playing in Alice Coltranes evolving group from 1969-1971 and Frank Wrights quartet in 1972. The original Duo Exchange recording sessions were cut at Marzette Watts’s New York studio; it was the maiden voyage for their partnership. Originally issued as a single LP, it contained a little more than half the music from the original sessions. Subsequent reissues (and the most pirated), were pared down even more. Produced by Patricia Ali (the drummers widow), George Schuller, and Ben Young, this double-LP version is historic and contains all the music recorded that day. The original album is on disc one, while the second disc contains soundchecks, alternate takes, rehearsals, studio chatter, and completed takes of various movements. The master take of Movement I commences with a furious repetitive theme that quickly begins to spiral off, while Ali engages the full-on depth and breadth of the crisscrossing polyrhythm technique that drew Coltrane to him in the first place, while Lowe, an extremely capable improviser whose sense of melody is much more attentive and intuitive than many of his peers, follows him onto the ledge, yet keeps the music grounded in offering themes, statements, and variations in the swirling, projective maelstrom. Alis solos in Movement I and Movement III, as intensely physical and commanding as they are, never feel excessive; they are filled with intense focus and feeling. Lowes tenor playing with his fat, razor-sharp grainy tone, prefers brief percussive statements to long drawn-out speculations. He is interested in the bone and marrow of the music, not its minutiae. He goes at Ali, not around or through him and, as the drummer proceeds similarly, they find bliss and terror in the eye of the sonic hurricane. At one point, Ali cues Movement III with the statement: …were gonna stretch on this one man. Don’t worry about no time limit and shit. Just play your saxophone. That statement is a manifesto for the entire recording. The second discs discussions and warm-ups fill out the portrait of the original album by grounding it in the immediacy of the blowing, but also but in the translation of what Ali called in interview, complex musical emotions. The sound on this set is breathtaking thanks to Joe Lizzi mixing and mastering. Its ferocious, aggressive, and spiritual free jazz. ~ Thom Jurek