Over his prolific, five-plus-decade career, bassist and composer William Parker's inexhaustible willingness to collaborate and experiment has led him to work with hundreds of instrumentalists, singers, poets, dancers, and painters, but rarely guitarists. Mayan Space Station is his first time leading a guitar-based power trio with drummer Gerald Cleaver and Brooklyn-based electric guitarist Ava Mendoza (a member of Unnatural Ways). The six selections here were all composed by the bassist for this group. It's one of two ...
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Over his prolific, five-plus-decade career, bassist and composer William Parker's inexhaustible willingness to collaborate and experiment has led him to work with hundreds of instrumentalists, singers, poets, dancers, and painters, but rarely guitarists. Mayan Space Station is his first time leading a guitar-based power trio with drummer Gerald Cleaver and Brooklyn-based electric guitarist Ava Mendoza (a member of Unnatural Ways). The six selections here were all composed by the bassist for this group. It's one of two Parker-led outings issued simultaneously on Aum Fidelity; the other is Painters Winter, with saxophonist Daniel Carter and drummer Hamid Drake, an overdue sequel of sorts to Painter's Spring from 2000. "Tabasco" commences with Cleaver and Parker in a hard- grooving circular vamp. Mendoza weaves a knotty head through their dancing rhythms. Her solo enfolds their vamps then spirals as she weaves a knotty lead through their dancing rhythms then spirals off into edgy fills, feedback, and spiky post-rock riffs while the rhythm section swings behind her. Her playing, while highly original, offers trace echoes of Monette Sudler's arpeggiated technique during the 1970s and Sonny Sharrock's late union of force, noise, and transcendent melody. "Rocas Rojas'' commences with Cleaver and Parker delivering a bouncy, syncopated Latin groove. Mendoza starts shading in the blues, then lifts off with skeins of distorted notes, reaching for outside. She bounces off her bandmates before leading them onto and over the improv ledge. "Domingo"'s unorthodox walking bass vamp is engaged immediately by Mendoza's modal shards as Cleaver weds Afro-Latin sources to post-bop and spidery funk. Parker plucks, pushes, and drives the expanding groove as a gateway for Mendoza's blues-drenched psychedelic solo, then bridges the trio's incendiary dialogue. On the title track, the drummer criss-crosses carnival rhythms from Brazil, Mexico, the Caribbean, and New Orleans. Parker slaps at his walking bass in a four-note vamp. Mendoza enters with spiky notes, signaling the trio's entry into abstraction. Using digital delay as a rhythmic device, she expands the pulse, then evades the frame entirely. She adds sharp, Robert Fripp-esque single lines and angular chords as the trio ascends in a glorious, explosive free-for-all fall. "Canyons of Light" is easily the most open piece here. Parker plays arco throughout, creating textures and pulses as Cleaver dances around his cymbals and hi-hat. Mendoza uses her sustain pedal on juicy, fragmented chords before the bassist takes a long, frenetic, bowed solo, creating a sonic backdrop for his bandmates to play off in ferocious call-and-response free interplay. Closer "The Wall Falls Down" is "Canyons" mirror image, a kinetic exercise in hard-swinging, fingerpopping post-bop. Mendoza's rockist solo channels the Amboy Dukes' version of "Baby Please Don't Go" before flying off into flamenco asides while referencing Jimmy Page, Bern Nix, and Les Paul as the rhythm section pushes her on. Mayan Space Station is a deeply focused, inspired set that uses familiar sounds, styles, and sources in building an engine for wide-ranging exploration resulting from uncommonly intimate musical communication. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi
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