Published in "The NYC Jazz Record", May 2018
NY@Night:
WILLIAM HOOKER
“The Great Migration”, Apr 5, 2018
Roulette, Brooklyn NY
by John
Pietaro
The vision
of master drummer William Hooker artfully extends beyond the fourth wall,
through time and space, conjuring jazz’s socio-political foundation. With the
multi-media piece “The Great Migration”, he traces the northward path of
African Americans and through pre-recorded interviews, the lives of elders Nannie
Lampkin and Alton Brooks, both pridefully present in the audience. Still, most
of the action took place onstage.
The stories
were intertwined with powerful music, mostly live but also through early recordings
of spirituals and a haunting chain-gang song. Hooker’s ensemble of Ras Moshe (tenor
saxophone), Eriq Robinson (electronics), Mara Rosenbloom (piano), William
Parker (bass), David Soldier (violin, banjo) and Ava Mendoza (guitar) shook the
sturdy house with searing improvisations that painted an aural manifesto of the
Black experience; the band’s free jazz, the living embodiment of liberation.
Moshe, as always, played with compelling passion, Mendoza’s features were
downright gripping and the electronics of Robinson tore up the soundscape.
The
leader’s composed melodies guided the action, particularly a blues hook so
prominent in Parker’s bass, often varied fluidly by the others. The music,
emotively directed by Hooker, recalled the rural south sans any trace of parody
(Soldier’s fiddle was exceptional here but his banjo needed stronger
amplification), while other sections were ethereal and expansive (Rosenbloom,
yes!). Dancer Goussy Celestin’s majestic segments flanked the production and she,
Jeremy Grosvenor and Hooker also acted as narrators. So vital is this epic
work, right now, that a lack of future productions would simply be criminal.
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