Roberts, Matana - Always
SKU
RPR 1036
“Long, simple, clear notes, they seem to trail off in the distance. Almost shyly played, as if the saxophonist wanted to approach what she wants to say very tenderly.
After her solo album Coin Coin Chapter 3: River Run Thee Matana Roberts presents herself with an entirely different approach of playing alone. While River Run Thee also included electronics, spoken word poetry, singing and all kind of samples, Always is stripped down to the single voice of her alto. And what a great saxophonist she is!
Always displays Roberts’ roots in Chicago's AACM and recordings by fellow artists like Anthony Braxton and Roscoe Mitchell. As in a stream of consciousness Roberts seems to look for a topic, a recurrent theme, a plan she wants to follow for the next 33 minutes (the length of the first track).
She wanders through the history of great black music, standing on the shoulders of giants like Lester Young and Ben Webster as well as John Coltrane and her idol Fred Anderson. Especially in the second track these giants are joined by the ghosts of Albert Ayler. Roberts’ music is the blues of the South, the call and response structures of the gospel, folk music ; and everything is bathed in deep melancholy. You can recognize bebop licks, blues riffs, staccato rhythms, free jazz runs and balladesque craving.
It’s a communication with herself, a masterful private meditation, it’s about looking for an original sound....”-Martin Schray / Free Jazz Blog
- LabelRelative Pitch
- UPC616892282044