SLAMCD268 Joe McPhee & Paul Hession – A Parallax View

This duo recording release coincided with the 50th birthday of British drummer Paul Hession and documents part of a mini tour he undertook with US saxophonist Joe McPhee in January 2003.

Paul Hession was born in Leeds in 1956 and since the late 70’s has played with many of the major figures on the free music scene. He has a particular liking for the direct two-way exchange of a reeds and drums duo.

Joe McPhee emerged on the creative jazz and new music scene in the late 60’s and is recognised as a key figure in the music. Time Out New York said of him… “His magical take on avant-garde sax remains one of the wonders of the scene. He still has one of the most beautiful tones on the planet, even when he’s reaching for jazz’s outer limits.”

Joe McPhee: tenor and soprano saxophone
Paul Hession: drums

“Hession is a polyrhythmic drummer who accompanies McPhee with wave-like swells that comment, surround, sometimes skitter around and sometimes prod McPhee but never overpower him. McPhee’s playing, especially on tenor has that rapturous, almost spiritual quality that infuses his best and most involved playing. “Blue Coat, Blue Collar” is a McPhee solo track where his control over the extended range of his instrument is a marvel to behold. Equally gripping is his soprano work on “Evocation”. When he enters after Hession’s drum solo, he bends and twists his phrases around Hession’s rolls, sounding almost like a nadaswaram, before eventually leading into an affecting version of one of his favourite songs, “Goin’ Home”. McPhee’s duet with drummer Hamid Drake, Emancipation Proclamation, is one of the finest in his discography. This one comes pretty close.” – Robert Lannopollo, All About Jazz

“The saxophonist’s playing amalgamates Mainstream tradition, go-for-broke Free Jazz and the extended techniques of Free Music into an incomparable package. On these Leeds and Liverpool dates with the nimbly inventive Hession – who also works many sides of the Improv/Jazz divide – both men communicate their superior talents.” – Ken Waxman, Coda

“From the outset McPhee is all burly bustle, mounting a gruffly passionate tenor saxophone onslaught that immediately invokes the jazz tradition from Coleman Hawkins through Sonny Rollins to Archie Shepp. After a brief pause he plays a beautiful scalar phrase from John Coltrane’s “Meditations” then takes the improvisation in a very different direction, focusing on a gospel-like motif in his horn’s lowest register. In many ways, a McPhee performance is a kind of testifying. He is a major performer in a specifically African-American improvisational style that owes something to the Holiness Church as well as jazz, with gospel tunes as apt to arise as references to jazz standards.” – Stuart Broomer, Musicworks

“McPhee uses his tenor alongside the soprano here, calling on the entire feasible range of the instrument, and sometimes just beyond, engaging with Hession’s splendid drumming in a way that explains why Hession was so keen to arrange these re-matches. It’s more abstract than the Trio-X album, but still it’s another disc to get out to refute accusations that improv is self-indulgent and esoteric, or that it can’t stand up to the close examination of repeated examinations on record.” – Barry Witherden, Jazz Review

“The opening “Tipping Point” slips straight in, as though already in progress, McPhee’s tenor enjoying a ragged bite, a shaggy, mane-shaking articulation. Hession’s touch is both heavy and light, tattoo figures glancing around the kit, light cymbal strikes maintaining a perpetual motion. Halfway through, activity dips down to near-zero, then the tune’s main line develops, rising up again. Even though these pieces are probably improvised, most of them possess a linear, rhythmic flow and a strong sense of instant composition.” – Martin Longley, The Wire

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