JD Parran & Mark Deutsch

JD Parran & Mark Deutsch: Omegathorp: Living City

by Karl A.D. Evangelista
November 9, 2006

The spirit of the exotic weighs strongly on Omegathorp: Living City, the most recent collaboration between reedman J.D. Parran and stringman Mark Deutsch. It's no surprise: Parran was a crucial member of the Black Artists' Group--the seminal St. Louis artists collective and one of the first formal musicians' organizations to champion freely improvised black music--and Deutsch is an acclaimed performer of North Indian classical music. Nonetheless, there is hardly a trace of tension about the album; what might, in lesser ...