Drummer Charles Downs has been on the scene for a long time. Stretching back to the 1970s, he was known as Rashid Bakr and contributed to numerous albums, including a few stone killers with the great pianist Cecil Taylor. After the turn of the century, he reverted to his birth name and continued recording; Inner by the Charles Downs Quartet is the first release to feature him as a sole leader. It is a superb set of five medium-length improvisations with Hery Paz on saxophone, Jamie Saft on piano, and Joe Morris on bass. It’s out now on compact disc and digital through ESP-Disk.
Charles Downs’ credits as Rashid Bakr are extensive and illuminate various points of development in the jazz avant-garde after its 1960s heyday, with his productivity continuing and contributing to the resurgence of free jazz in the ’90s. His initial recordings were with a younger generation of improvisers who were either deep in the thick of the New York City loft scene or adjacent to it.
During this early stretch, Downs played with double bassist William Parker (collected on Centering. Unreleased Early Recordings 1976–1987), saxophonist Jemeel Moondoc (collected on Muntu Recordings), and violinist Billy Bang’s Survival Ensemble (the albums New York Collage and Black Man’s Blues).
A hookup with Cecil Taylor in the 1980s captured Downs in a quartet for the live album The Eighth and the larger all-star ensemble for the studio set Winged Serpent (Sliding Quadrants). Both releases are high-energy monsters in Taylor’s distinct mode of explosiveness, and both are essential to understanding Downs’ progression.
Into the ’90s, Downs was part of Other Dimensions in Music, reteaming with Parker and on assorted horns, Daniel Carter, and Roy Campbell for a handful of releases that stretched into the new century and continued after the switch from Bakr back to his birth name. Additionally, there were albums with saxophonists Glenn Spearman, Arthur Doyle, Peter Brötzmann, and Sabir Mateen.
Down’s work as part of the Feel Trio with saxophonist Louis Belogenis and bassist Joe Morris brings us closer to Inner, as does his drumming on two records with Morris and keyboardist Jamie Saft, Atlas and Mountains, the latter bringing in Bradley Jones on bass as Morris switches to guitar. There’s also Ticonderoga, where saxophonist Joe McPhee joins Downs, Saft, and Morris.
What should be obvious is a level of experience that explains the depth of rapport across Inner’s five improvisations. But Inner is more than a mere swapping out of McPhee from Ticonderoga for Cuban saxophonist Hery Paz. More than a decade has transpired between the two recordings, for starters.
There are stretches of pure improv fireworks on Inner, particularly later in the sequence, but the recording is nicely varied in approach. Saft can bring the thunder, but he counterbalances it with fleeting lyricism and dishes some reflective angularity. Likewise, Paz, who is certainly deft with the skronk but is just as inclined toward extended post-Rollins beauty moves, gradually turning up the heat and occasionally interjecting with flutters reminiscent of birdsong.
Even though it begins with a spotlight on Downs, Inner doesn’t unwind like a drummer-led session. While this is explicitly Downs’ album, the spirit of collectivity predominates, and the lack of hierarchy is appreciated.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
