The Dave Wilson Quartet: Stretching Supreme

The saxophonist does some Coltrane, a standard and an original, adopting the loquacious example of his inspiration

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Not so much stretching A Love Supreme as playing with it, altering it and coming up with something of a strange hybrid. Watson begins with a two-minute introduction to Coltrane’s work and then spends 25 minutes improvising, noodling and changing the basic music.

He concentrates on Acknowledgement and Resolution, ignoring the other parts of Coltrane’s 1964 suite. He has a rich, burnished sound which seems out of sync with a composition of this kind. At times he wanders away from the theme and indulges in some free blowing.

Pianist Reese appears to be following the general direction of McCoy Tyner’s solos on the original Trane recording but he too resorts to first slowing the line right down, then noodling and finally indulging himself in some free stuff. It is too long at 25 minutes.

A classic recording like Coltrane’s is best left alone unless the idea is to produce something startlingly original on the theme. Even then, proceeding with caution is advisable.

The two Supreme pieces are followed an original, a standard and more Trane. On The Prairie is Wilson’s, and follows the format of long tenor solo followed by noodling, followed by free blowing, then same from the pianist. Days Of Wine and Roses is a favourite of Wilson’s and he improvises at length, trying the melody this way and that over 13½ minutes. He gets into some serious improvisation here, impressive at times but once again, it is too long. The same goes for Dear Lord and Naima, the latter at just under 15 minutes.

There is some intricate solo work attempted on these mainly Coltrane tracks and sometimes it works. It might have worked a lot better if all the selections had been half as long.

Discography
A Love Supreme Intro to Part 1; Acknowledgement; Resolution; On The Prairie; Days Of Wine And Roses; Dear Lord; Naima (76.27)
Wilson (ts, ss); Kirk Reese (p); Tony Marino (b); Alex Ritz, Dan Monaghan (d). Philadelphia, 2017 & 2018.
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