Bluiett has the low notes while Wadud comments pizzicato in a bluesy style. “The Hard Blues” Look out! Phillip Wilson with a nasty backbeat and the horns in full funky attitude.
(bonus track from same session with Hamiet Bluiett added on baritone sax) It’s impossible to imagine any other cellist making this work so well. Wilson’s brushwork keeps a loose groove with the “guitar” under the horns. There’s something of an innocent fantasy to this piece, even (strange as it may sound) a feel not far from ’60’s folk-rock. “The Painter” For the other long track on the original LP, Hemphill plays flute, Carroll is muted, and Wadud strums his cello like a guitar. Near the end of the improv, Wadud groans out a sliding pedal point on fifths, a bagpipe gone wrong. Wilson is just as superb playing the free chatter as the tight 11/8 groove, while the whole texture is essentially defined by Wadud’s scales, glisses, and shrieks. “Rites” After the focus of “Dogon,” “Rites” is a chaotic barnburner, where a tight melody with a touch of bebop opens the door to collective improvisation.
Drummer Phillip Wilson (who gigged with commercial groups like the Paul Butterfield Blues Band as well as avant cats, see the DTM interview with David Sanborn) holds the 11/8 right in the pocket as Hemphill and Carroll preach their stories. It’s the first tune on Hemphill’s first album, but he knew just what he was doing, including subbing out the expected bass chair for Wadud’s funky arco strut.
A natural composer, he left us hundreds of pieces for all sorts of configurations and contexts, none more durable than the extended “Dogon A.D.,” from which a whole world of modern jazz flows, partly through the influential tributary of Tim Berne (who placed Hank Roberts in the Abdul Wadud role). “Dogon A.D.” Julius Hemphill was part bluesman, part modernist, and part trickster.
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