Bassist William Parker and drummer Wiliam Hooker are two of the elder voices in jazz music’s long and rich history, with both men still very active on the scene. Amongst their recent activities, they’ve joined together with tenor saxophonist Isaiah Collier, a younger participant to the current jazz landscape, to form The Ancients, a group specializing in long-form improvisation in the grand tradition of the great trios established by Cecil Taylor and Ornette Coleman. On January 31, Eremite Records releases the debut recording by The Ancients on double vinyl, the release offering one long performance improv, dynamic and diverse, on each of the album’s sides.
Intergenerational combos have a special appeal. Often it’s a torch-passing thing, though that’s only somewhat the case with The Ancients, as Chicago-Brooklyn-based saxophonist Isaiah Collier, the youngest member of the trio, is already firmly established on the scene, in large part through a series of recordings made with his group The Chosen Few.
Collier & The Chosen Few debuted in 2018 with the CDr Return of the Black Emperor on the Good Vibes Only label. The next year brought a follow-up, the self-released digital-only The Unapologetic Negro (Live at the Coda Club Cafe). In 2021 came Cosmic Transitions, the first of three 2LP sets on the Division 81 label, with the next two, The Almighty and The World Is on Fire, arriving just last year. In 2023, Collier released Parallel Universe apart from the Chosen Few on the Night Dreamer label.
Collier’s music spans from bop-ish runs to post-Coltrane modal dives to calmer spiritual modes to straight up late ’70s drive time R&B, and now, as part of The Ancients, lengthy free jazz excursions are part of the saxophonist’s creative equation. But in a sweet move, in the opener “2023-05-12 LA Set II,” Collier immediately establishes his own personality on tenor, beginning the piece with contemplative serenity before transitioning into appealing melodic energies.
The performances captured on this set were part of the Milford Graves Mind Body Deal exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art Los Angeles, with the trio brought together by bassist Parker, who across his immense time on the scene (debuting on record on Frank Lowe’s Black Beings, released in 1972 on ESP Disk) has played in trios with drummer Graves and saxophonists Peter Brötzmann and Charles Gayle.
Had Collier decided to deliver the sort of lung fury that’s been long associated with Brötzmann and Gayle right out of the blocks, that would’ve been understandable. As these four sides progress, Collier certainly reaches those heights in his improvising (stretches later on side one and on side four are deliriously intense), and he establishes further that he can be expressive when he’s laying it down with full force.
But citing Coltrane, Roscoe Mitchell, Wayne Shorter, Ari Brown, and Gene Ammons as influences, Collier’s range is wide, both stylistically and emotionally, and his ability to interact with Parker and Hooker, not just roll forth over top of them, is even more impressive. This set captures a union, now a working group, that was fully clicking creatively in the performances captured. The Ancients is an easily distinguishable and highly valuable entry in the discography of all the participants. Hopefully this recording is just the start of group’s musical journey.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
