David S. Ware, Freedom Suite

Freedom Suite is themed by 3 re-conceptualized improvisational repeats of the opening cut from Rollin's glorious 1958 masterwork. Rollin's prot g David S. Ware's reworking focuses on drawing apart the tense battling in the rhythm section to the limits of its fabric. Unlike the original, introducing a piano holds the fragile threads together with a swinging adhesion, but the dynamic is swiftly away from the popular melody line into multiple frissons of knife-edge solo navigation. However, the sweat never really beads, and we're left with the feeling that all those years of Ware's experience has actually made him too comfortable with this form, or is it because he's standing on the shoulder of a giant? The effect is A Love Supreme for agnostics. Noncommittal in bearing the soul, but great music all the same.