Seymour Wright: Is This Right? Saxophone Solos 2014-2017
Author: Philip Clark
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Musicians: |
Seymour Wright (as) |
Label: |
No Label CD |
Magazine Review Date: |
November/2017 |
RecordDate: |
2014-2017 |
Seymour Wright made his mark as a long-term attendee of AMM percussionist Eddie Prévost's Friday evening improvisation workshops but has over recent years defined a more independent identity away from the Prévost mothership. Latest recordings have included duo sets with Evan Parker and Nate Wooley, and this 2CD set of solo recordings is a follow-up to Seymour Writes Back, a 4CD compendium of solo material released in 2015. Two discs are positioned inside a thin oblong cardboard sleeve and if you're wondering why Wright's cover art looks like a 1970s television test-card that would mainly be because it is a testcard, albeit from China, and other images arranged inside the cover include astronaut Ronald McNair playing a saxophone inside a spaceship and a detailed close up of experimental novelist Ann Quin's hands. Without wanting to be overly literal about it, Wright's experimentation, as he examines the boundaries of saxophone music, regularly defies gravity and these five pieces, recorded in Bologna, London and Paris, reveal sides of the saxophone we didn't necessarily know existed. One piece uses multi-tracked, multiple Seymour Wrights to sculpt a bold compositional form that puts you in mind of Edgard Varèse; elsewhere feedback and volume pedals teleport raw sounds around space. Those tracks where Wright deals with the raw physics of pumping sound through tubes, reconceiving his instrument as Evan Parker and John Butcher reconceived theirs, feel closest to core jazz concerns. Harmonic overtones are isolated and made to dance, blaring multiphonic chords are pulled from nowhere, frantic silences are filled with jittery clicks, knocks and snaps. Remarkable is the right word. The set is available via Wright's website (www.seymourwright.com), where all the music can also be streamed for free and downloaded (you name your own price).

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