Frank Lowe: The Loweski

A ferociously powerful tenor player whose harsh, overblown tone evoked the wildest flights of Ayler, Trane, and Pharoah but was also capable of more groove-based R&B workouts, Frank Lowe was among the most vital creative forces on the early-‘70s New York loft scene. After doing remarkable turns as a sideman for Alice Coltrane and Don Cherry, Lowe enlisted scene luminaries like The Art Ensemble of Chicago’s Joseph Jarman and up-and-coming bassman William Parker to form a new quintet. The group’s barnstorming live set was documented on Lowe’s 1973 debut for ESP Black Beings, now considered one of the quintessential documents of New York free jazz in the early ‘70s. The Loweski captures this same quintet performing a thunderous five-part suite on the very same evening Black Beings was recorded. The disc starts with a powerful solo fanfare from Lowe himself, who comes on with hurricane force before subsiding into more meditative passages. When the quintet comes forward in the second movement, the results are nothing less than bone-shaking.