Saxophonist
Binker Golding is everywhere in 2021 thus far. In February, he and longtime collaborator
Moses Boyd issued Escape the Flames, recorded at the 2017 release performance of
Journey to the Mountain of Forever. In March, The Secret Handshake with Danger, Vol. One appeared on
577. Influenced by
Miles Davis'
On the Corner, this improvised session was led by drummer
Eddie Prevost, with guitarists
Henry Kaiser and N.O. Moore and bassist Ollie Brice. Moon Day, his third release in as many months, was improvised in the studio with co-billed collaborators drummer
Steve Noble and bassist
John Edwards. They recorded in 2020 during occasional breaks in the U.K.'s COVID-19 lockdowns.
Four of these six tracks were cut on the spot; the other two are brief edits, but this is not a skronk fest. It is inherently musical and cannily intuitive, a creatively focused conversation between three top-shelf communicators. The 24-minute opener, "One Giant Step, Parts I-IV," implies a suite, but it's far less complicated.
Golding spends two minutes meditating with his tenor, tending toward circular phrases, harmonic feints, and bluesy fills.
Edwards enters, underscoring those tendencies with pulsed notes and plucked chords, and trades lines and harmonic assertions with the saxist. After
Noble joins in, he establishes a fluid groove across Latin, post-bop, and funk rhythms, wrapping their back-and-forth inside his beats.
Golding responds on tenor and soprano horns, binding the rhythm section's mercurial presence to him with short pulses, long modal lines, and a lyric intensity that propels them forward.
While "Reflection" is only five minutes, it is twice as kinetic and engages in a maelstrom of force and motion.
Golding's tenor sprints to keep up, sometimes with short staccato bursts, sometimes with loping expressions of turbulent emotion. "Lunar Wind," another extended work, is its mirror image as
Golding leads an expedition into the fiery unknown with the reedy upper register on his soprano horn. His knotty exchanges with
Edwards' arco playing are breathtaking and seamless as
Noble rumbles on tom-toms and kick drum, alternately massaging and assaulting his cymbals. The 20-minute "For S.K." uses
Noble's rhythmic assertions as a guidepost.
Edwards confirms by driving the bass pizzicato and/or arco with a bow, offering an undercurrent of wiry support and encouraging inspiration.
Golding cuts through the middle; he finds the underbelly and nestles in, eventually soaring over the top with bleating phrases, clipped lines, and honking tones, spiraling with his bandmates to engage one another with drama, humor, and delight to achieve a shared and dynamic inner space. Moon Day is certainly urgent -- the circumstances of its recording process ensured that. But it is also deeply and finally resonant. These musicians communicate with a palette stipulating that generosity is as important as ability and intuition. This is free jazz that takes everything into account and shapes what is projectively relevant into a multivalent expression of unity and consummate creativity and offers it to the listener. ~ Thom Jurek