Master drummer Hamid Drake is one of the most beloved musicians in Israel ever since he performed with Roy Campbell Pyramid Trio at the Tel Aviv Jazz Festival in 2005, alongside double bass master hero William Parker. Drake and Parker recorded during this visit a double album with local tenor sax hero Albert Beger (Evolving Silence Vol. 1 & 2, EarSay, 2005, 2006). Drake continued to frequent the Tel Aviv club Levontin 7 (owned by another Israeli sax hero, Assif Tsahar) and in his last visit in July 2023 reconvened with Beger for another recording, Cosmic Waves. Beger brought to this recording session, captured live at Levontin 7 and at Kitcha Studios in Tel Aviv, his long-time double bass and guimbri player Shay Hazan (who plays in Beger Quartet and in a duo with Beger) and Hazan’s childhood friend, Amsterdam-based bass clarinetist Ziv Taubenfeld (who has played with Hazan in the Bones trio and is known for the Kuhn Fu and Full Sun bands).
The title of the album, Cosmic Waves, captures beautifully the spiritual atmosphere of this free improvised meeting that has deep roots in the free jazz of the late sixties. Drake, naturally, drives the music forward, already on the opening piece, the 19-minute, live "A Question of Universality", but his cosmic polyrhythmics also open the music and inject a sense of infinity. You just wish that his seductive, celestial vibes will keep feeding you more and more. The propulsive bass and North African guimbri playing of Hazan intensify Drake’s pulse. Beger and Taubenfeld do not need more and simply soar and dance around each other, tell their invigorating stories and enjoy “the sounds of tears and laughter” and “the circle of unity and compassion”, as Taubenfeld wrote a poem for this album.
“Into The Horizon” is a mysterious ballad, introduced by Hazan’s guimbri, while Drake deepens its hypnotic, ritualist spirit, allowing Beger and Taubenfeld to develop a passionate and soulful conversation while singing the theme. Hazan also introduces the following piece, “The Streamer”, this time on his double bass, sketching the outlines of a fiery free improvisation that Beger, Taubenfeld Drake push to its explosive edges. The last, short piece “Astral Visit”, concludes this masterful cosmic journey with an introspective, lyrical note, but begs for more such stimulating and life-affirming journeys.
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