Home » Jazz Articles » Multiple Reviews » David S. Ware and Joe Rigby: Loft Jazz Soloists
David S. Ware and Joe Rigby: Loft Jazz Soloists
John Coltrane
saxophone1926 - 1967
Albert Ayler
saxophone, tenor1936 - 1970
The bulk of the importance of this period was not so much aesthetic, but a self-reliant business practice espoused in musician-run spaces like Studio Rivbea (multi-instrumentalist/composer 
Sam Rivers
saxophone, tenor
1923 - 2011
Rashied Ali
drums
1935 - 2009
Charles Tyler
saxophone, baritone
1941 - 1992
Steve Reid
drums
b.1944Joe Rigby
b.1940
David S. Ware
Saturnian
AUM Fidelity
2010
David S. Ware was one of a handful of very hard-working and intense musicians to come out of the Boston scene. Along with drummer 
Marc Edwards
drums
b.1949
Cooper-Moore
piano
b.1946
Cecil Taylor
piano
1929 - 2018
Andrew Cyrille
drums
b.1939Beaver Harris
drums
b.1936
Matthew Shipp
piano
b.1960
William Parker
bass
b.1952
It's a treat to hear Ware on the smaller horns as he spirals out long interlocking lines. On saxello, his orchestration of thin a capella trills results in sections of rhythmic waves interrupted only momentarily by glossolalic jumbles and declarative repetitions. While sounding fuller than "solo," the shifts and turns in mood, suite-like, would require the highest-caliber collaborators: the importance of his specific ensemble(s) in the gestation and performance of Ware's music is underscored. It's not that the listener is left wishing for a band, moreso that there's a presentness in this music that effects something larger—a mass and weight that's different from the room-altering pans of his tenor. The chipped grate of stritch on "Pallene" moves in ways lickety-split and loquacious, rhythmic and dialogic with that larger, ghost-like energy of orchestration. His hounding of the alto-range horn, braying arpeggios and scouring honks, is an utterly captivating motivic development not all that divergent from his major influence, Sonny Rollins. Saturnian is, bar-none, some of the greatest Ware on record—and considering the health precipice he was recently on, that's an extra heavy achievement.
Joe Rigby
Music
Homeboy Music
2009
Saxophonist and flutist Joe Rigby is not as well known as he should be, though he came up alongside Ware in the lofts of New York in the late 1970s, playing in the groups of drummers Steve Reid and 
Milford Graves
drums
1940 - 2021
Ted Daniel
trumpet
b.1943
Ken Filiano
bass
b.1952
Lou Grassi
drums
b.1947
The set begins with a piece for flute, the Scottish traditional "The Dark Island," which has a delicate, soft lilt and an almost childlike innocence to its meditative theme. Rigby's improvisation retains simplicity with only slight variations on the theme, stairstepping and peeking around melodic corners with a full, crisp but wavering tone. Rather than a technical proving ground on the 
Eric Dolphy
woodwinds
1928 - 1964
The disc appears to move through pieces in the order that they were played, melodies seemingly picking up where the previous ones left off. Which isn't to imply "sameness" to the proceedings—rather the material is unadorned and each tune operates as a component of a starkly beautiful suite. "The Day After" is a soprano piece with the weight of the world behind it, each pause impregnated with biography and reverence and each spiraling trill an exuberant espousing of ideas and history. Not all of the pieces here are rubato explorations. "Afro Blue" is given an eliding rhythm, Rigby carrying the tune's urgent swing into whinnying nooks and crannies, emphasizing a monologue of direct, personal inquisition over orchestral and spatial largesse. "My One and Only Love" is given an almost saccharine quality, carried forth by Rigby's sincerity, one that's been burnished through years of life and work and still retains a delicate edge. Music offers a major contrast to Saturnian, but they are both defining personal statements by two of creative improvisation's most powerful and storied voices.
Tracks and Personnel
Saturnian
Tracks: Methone; Pallene; Anthe.
Personnel: David S. Ware: saxello, stritch and tenor saxophone.
Music
Tracks: The Dark Island; Earth Flower; The Day After; Welcome; Lift Every Voice; Sweet Dreams; Afro Blue; My One and Only Love.
Personnel: Joe Rigby: tenor and soprano saxophones, flute.
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