This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People

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On his third recording for ESP-Disk in as many years, Polish multi-instrumentalist Mat Walerian showcases a new band and makes his studio debut. His first ESP-Disk release, Uppercut: Live at Okuden, was a duo with pianist Matthew Shipp. Walerian followed it with the trio date Jungle: Live at Okuden, which added drummer Hamid Drake to the mix. On This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People, the lineup shifts: bassist/shakuhachi flutist William Parker takes the place of Drake (and marks Parker's own return to the label after a 44-year absence -- he last appeared on Frank Lowe's Black Beings in 1973). This Is Beautiful was cut in a Brooklyn studio during a single day. Almost 80 minutes in length, it consists of five long tracks.
Opener "Lesson" commences as a duet for flute and shakuhachi before Parker abruptly picks up his bass. Shipp's interrogatory chord voicings are followed by an increasingly dynamic exchange with Walerian. But rather than project fire, the trio move toward an investigation of Asian music -- a primary influence on the bandleader. "The Breakfast Club Day 1" erupts with Parker's frenetic free bowing before Walerian's alto saxophone enters on the blues tip, shifting its focus. Shipp straddles the line between them, walking out mysterious, repetitive patterns before finding his own labyrinthian way into another hidden lyricism. Parker's freedom and Walerian's blues eventually entwine with the pianist and the piece gels, unfolding over nearly 20 minutes. Parker again gets the nod to open the title track with a meditative bass solo that takes up a third of the jam's 11-minute length. When Walerian enters on soprano clarinet, highlighted by Shipp's mysterious blocky chords and subtle, left-hand expressionistic caresses, we are again immersed in blues, only this shade bridges the past and the future. Shipp's solo on "The Breakfast Club Day 2" is the highlight of this 20-minute jam as he explores intricately wrought ghost voicings amid Parker's punchy bowed pulses and Walerian's almost swinging alto horn. In the final third they become a single force of swirling color that, even amid the dissonance, creates a groove. Shipp uncharacteristically plays organ on closer "Peace and Respect," which comes off as a seeming glance at the music hidden inside the music of film noir. Walerian's bass clarinet is rooted deeply in the tradition, but his use of Eric Dolphy's spiritually infused lyricism gets the most out of his bandmates before he even switches to alto. Parker's restraint builds a necessary atmospheric tension as he walks out his own hearing of the blues; Shipp's tonal expressions are eerie and beautiful as Walerian opens himself to imbue it all with an ethereal, poetic, yet authoritative utterance. While Walerian's three albums all showcase a truly massive talent -- one as adept at nuanced listening as canny improvisation and creative composition -- Toxic's This Is Beautiful Because We Are Beautiful People is the deepest and widest. Taken as a whole, this record actually sings with inspiration.

© Thom Jurek /TiVo