Louis Moholo-Moholo Quartet: 4 Blokes

Rating: ★★★★

Record and Artist Details

Musicians:

Louis Moholo-Moholo (d)
John Edwards (b)
Alexander Hawkins (p)
Jason Yarde (as, bs)

Label:

Ogun

February/2015

Catalogue Number:

OGCD043

RecordDate:

2013

Charmingly self-deprecating as the title may be, it cannot play down a self-evident truth: the four men in question are anything but run of the mill geezers, artistically speaking. Yet the music, regardless of its uncompromising ambition, has the kind of grit and guile that often defines populist traditions from around the word. Moholo-Moholo, in any case, part of an illustrious lineage of forward-thinking drummers that would include Sunny Murray, Milford Graves and Andrew Cyrille, seeks to play with as well as in time, and sees the kit in terms of textures as well as propulsion. The 74 year-old South African's whirling rubato produces anything from darting patterns on the toms to crisp shimmers of cymbals to slithery, elongated snare rolls that are enhanced by the constant quiver and throb of Edwards' bass. This turbulent but mobile low end is matched by a controlled explosiveness from Yarde's reeds and Hawkins' piano, each of which often entwines the other's lines, twisting them metrically and harmonically like a distorting mirror at a funfair. Such jittery, nervy phrasing conjures up a virtual meeting of Don Pullen and Eric Dolphy, and a salient reference for the creative surge of the material might well be those two giants thrown together in a particularly combustible Mingus workshop. Like the great bassist's music, Moholo-Moholo‘s work has a yearning, hymnal quality and the rendition of the gorgeous ‘Angel-Nomali’, a beautifully tender song by his late colleague Dudu Pukwana, makes that point movingly. Since his first showing with The Blue Notes (alongside Pukwana), in the 1960s and Viva La Black in the 80s Moholo-Moholo has been making albums with a vibrant, high-octane character, and this offering is a consolidation of his status as well as the document of an excellent group steeped in a rich history that is anything but passé.

Follow us

Jazzwise Print

  • Latest print issues

From £5.83 / month

Subscribe

Jazzwise Digital Club

  • Latest digital issues
  • Digital archive since 1997
  • Download tracks from bonus compilation albums during the year
  • Reviews Database access

From £7.42 / month

Subscribe

Subscribe from only £5.83

Never miss an issue of the UK's biggest selling jazz magazine.

Subscribe

View the Current
Issue

Take a peek inside the latest issue of Jazzwise magazine.

Find out more