Daniel Carter & Reuben Radding: Luminescence

DANIEL CARTER + REUBEN RADDING
Luminescence

Aum Fidelity

For someone who listens to and reviews jazz and improvised music for a living (or at least a partial living) it sometimes becomes difficult to remember that all that is required to produce beautiful, meaningful music is an instrument and a sensitive musician. Charts, recordings, reviews, magazines, publicists, record labels, clubs…not one of these is needed in order to produce incredible music. If two or more musicians get together and play improvised music, really play, really improvise, really listen, then it affects both musicians. The music is real and its effect on the world is real even if it is never recorded and no one else hears it.

Fortunately, the music created by Daniel Carter and Reuben Radding on Luminescence was recorded. The first four tracks were recorded at the Earshot Jazz Festival in Seattle, while the remaining three were recorded two days later in a Seattle studio. Radding tells us how, in the wake of 9/11, Carter was unable to fly with his usual compliment of instruments (alto and tenor saxes, clarinet, trumpet, and flute) and so arrived with only his alto saxophone. In terms of the evidence offered on this CD, we can only believe that this was a blessing, a limitation that Carter would not have imposed upon himself yet which no doubt altered his approach to and his playing on this project. The music which Carter and Radding created is among the most meditative and gorgeous that I have heard recently.

Right from the starting track, “You And I Are Disappearing” Carter plays with a sumptuous tone that at times can recall Johnny Hodges, while at other times bringing Jackie McLean and, on occasion, Ornette Coleman, to mind. The two musicians are wonderfully matched, and Radding manages to coax a variety of organic sounds from his bass—at times when using a bow he rumbles around in the lower register of the instrument, sounding like a bass armada. At other times, such as on the first half of the aptly named “Refracted Light and Grace” he swings amiably alongside Carter’s improvised lines, evoking a walking bass pattern without actually locking into it.

Another winning aspect of this recording is the space that the players allow to develop around and between their notes and musical thoughts. Many free improvisers seem to find it imperative to put as many notes and ideas out there as possible, as though listeners might disappear if they take too long to put their thoughts together. Carter and Radding allow these pieces to develop so organically that many of them sound very much as though they had been composed. The two musicians are very focused on the thing that they are creating between them rather than on what they themselves are playing or on the mechanics of their respective instruments. Carter’s playing is so effortless, as is his tone in the alto saxophone’s mid-range, that he comes across as an unflappable Paul Desmond of free improvisation. Focus and control are earmarks of Carter and Radding’s duo work here, and the results are stunning, so much so that I would recommend this disk even to those who do not generally like avant-garde jazz or free improvisation.

Luminescence is not trendy, nor does it present a concept or method of playing that is radically new. It simply is, like all real music.