Cries in the dark!
For his last album, drummer Alvin L. Fiedler (who passed January 5, 2019) brought together the team of vocalist Kelley Hurt and Kidd Jordan, Kidd Parker, Christopher parker and Chad Fowler for six free and loose explorations. The team feels it’s most bopping and traditional on the hard hitting 
“Guilty Happy” with a mix of voices and sax and even whistling during the successful “Garden Party.” Flailing reeds and screeching horns thunder across bowed and picked basses and hard hitting drums on “C Melody” and “Dopolaia” and an arm wrestling match comes to a draw between tenor sax and Fielder on “Impromptu.” Muscular moments.
Colin Hinton plays drums, percussion, glockenspiel and gongs as he leads an intuitive team of Anna Webber/ts-fl, Yuma Uesaka/reeds, Edward Gavitt/g and Shawn Lovato/b through six tunes ranging from a concise 3 to stretched out 18 minutes. The moods are soft and almost ambient, with gurgling clarinets and bass clarinets ruminating with Gavit on “Synesthopy” and dainty flutes floating with Webber’s tenor sax on “Obversify” Eerie guitar tones create space sounds with Hinton on “Breath” and the loose “Slab Warmth” features fragmented mixing and matching musical puzzle pieces. Mercury flowing through your fingers.
The International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE) consists of trumpeters Peter Evans with Nate Wooley, along with saxist Ryan Muncy, trombonist Weston Olencki and percussionist Ross Karre. They team with Amy Cimini on viola and bassoonist Katherine Young on bassoon, while Sam Pluta and Jeff Snyder provide electronics for these 15 musical snippets. The result is puffing brass mixing with electronic musings on a pair of “Module” compositions, pizzicato’d pluckings for “Estamplie” and “AWOL Improvisation” and mourning trumpets on “Pavan”. A handful of improvisations get a bit scratchy and jabby, and otherworldly harmonies and textures make for “Rondelay” and “ Alman.” Space, the final frontier.
Singer Patty Waters gives a dedication to Cecil Taylor during this concert at the First Unitarian Congregational Society back in 2018. She’s supported by the strong trio of Burton Greene/p, Mario Pavone/b and Barry Artschul/perc with a collection of tunes focusing on Billie Holiday. That seems to be fitting, as Waters’ delivery is hauntingly reminiscent of the frail and fragile sound of late Lady Day, as she warbles through “You’ve Changed” and “I Love (sic) You, Porgy.” Green supplies a strong foundation for the bluesy “Lover Man” and uses the piano strings for an artsy “Lonely Woman.” She gives dark emotions for “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” with her warble walking a tightrope for “Strange Fruit.” Hold on tight.