Firestorm

When it came out in 1992, Firestorm went quite unnoticed. Many missed this very strong, very untypical string-only free jazz date. Cellist Diedre Murray and bassist Fred Hopkins developed a profound musical relationship in the Henry Threadgill Sextet. This CD was the duo's first release. Murray favors a written-down approach; her compositions lay out melodies, phrases, and sections, but also include lots of improvisation and time stretching, and they require the kind of underlying complicity very few are capable of. Six of the eight pieces are Murray's. The opening number, "Jolly Ollie," follows a spirited swing motif, but this jazz reference is constantly recontextualized by the cello's sound and Murray's virtuosic use of it. The other highlight of this album is "Almost Unison." The opening head is exactly that — a complex unison written with the intent that one of the two players should inevitably stumble. Although jazzier and more tune-based, this duo sounds close to the violin/bass pairing of Albrecht Maurer and Kent Carter. Strings in jazz (especially new jazz or free jazz) don't have to sound pompous: When freed from all clichés, they can lie somewhere between jazz and classical, while being pledged to neither of them. ~ François Couture, Rovi