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The Number

The Making of Quiet Things

SLAMCD 269

Anyone who was fortunate enough to hear Dreamtime at the Vortex in December will already have experienced the power and passion of Gary Curson's alto playing.

On this quartet album (other participants: Keith Tippett on piano, John Edwards on bass, Mark Sanders on drums) Curson is given even freer rein than he is in Dreamtime.

The Number specialise in freely improvised music, full on, fiercely interactive interplay utilising the entire dynamic and textural range of each instrument. Tippett, whether performing in the ensembles, duos or the concluding solo piece, moves with his customary ease between full-blooded percussive playing and the most filigree-delicate contributions, interspersed with rustlings and tinklings produced by objects placed on the piano's strings.

Edwards (his playing skills now finely honed by all his experience with the likes of Evan Parker) plunges, twangs and blurts his way through the more raucously vigorous passages and squeaks and drones through the quieter moments; Sanders (his playing as ever finding a middle path between the clattering roar of Tony Levin and the wonderfully sympathetic, quietly rapt patter of Tony Marsh) is the subtly discreet yet powerful heartbeat of the band.

It is Curson, however, who most often sets the tone: urgent bordering on downright frenetic, his alto wails, screams and keens, rendering the Number's music raw and adventurous, intensely emotional. Free jazz at its most viscerally affecting.