William Parker / Hamid Drake / Cooper-Moore: Heart Trio

By largely leaving behind their main instruments, three stalwarts of the New York avant jazz scene tap into something timeless and elemental on Heart Trio. Instead of his customary bass, William Parker wields an array of flutes, double reeds, and the doson ngoni, a six-stringed hunter's harp from West Africa allegedly the ancestor of the banjo. His long-time partner Chicago drummer Hamid Drake remains at his kit, which he supplements with a frame drum, while erstwhile pianist Cooper-Moore, another habitué of Parker's groups, here restricts himself to two homemade instruments, the ashimba and the hoe-handle harp.

The upshot of a 2021 studio session is seven spontaneously generated cuts that are heavy on percussion and rhythm. The album fits easily into Parker's concept of Universal Tonality, alongside other outings from his copious discography such as "Red Giraffe With Dreadlocks" from For Those Who Are Still (Aum Fidelity, 2015), Long Hidden: The Olmec Series (Aum Fidelity, 2006) and Eloping With The Sun (Riti, 2003). Despite being informed by ethnic practices from around the globe, the constantly shifting extemporized meter means that the individual tracks defy simplistic attribution to any one tradition.

The morphing beats will not be a surprise to anyone familiar with the freedom Parker and Drake enjoy in each other's company that enables them to go anywhere their fancy takes them, secure in the knowledge that the other will not only follow but put their own stamp upon it. In this approach, Cooper-Moore proves a willing accomplice. The woody marimba-like patterns that issue from his ashimba embellish and compound the drummer's flow in an infectious mesh, while grounding Parker's flute in the wild dance of "Serbia" for example, or buoying up his breathy shakuhachi on "Atman."

Pick of the bunch however are the three tracks where Parker lays down hypnotic Gnawa-like meditations on the doson ngoni. These are also the three longest pieces, allowing them to dig into the trance-like throbs to maximize their impact. Cooper-Moore offers melodic lines on his hoe-handle harp, particularly on the lovely "Five Angels By The Stream," his contributions elsewhere are more in terms of texture, like those of Parker's various double reeds and flutes.

Parker's thoughts on the title track from Long Hidden also seem pertinent to much of the music here: "It is connected to people sitting on the porch after supper, playing that old guitar, a suspending time of tuning and detuning dreams."

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