Charles Downs Quartet

Unlike certain child prodigies or underage performers who are pushed into leading recording dates before their music has reached maturity, drummer Charles Downs waited  until he was 82 to release his first leadership session. Unlike 1940s-1950s discs by unheralded New Orleans veterans demonstrating that musicianship had passed them by, Downs is still a sympathetic percussionist working here with associates respectively around 12, 25 and 40 years younger. than him.

Downs is certainly not unknown or unheralded. Under his nom de tambour of Rashid Bakr he was involved in Free Jazz dissemination playing with such sound avatars as Cecil Taylor and Jameel Moondoc. Reverting to his birth name in the 21^st Century he’s active in bands with Larry Ochs and others.

Inner’s five numbered tracks are no momentous revelation but simply a continuation of the mature creative music he’s generated for more than 50 years. The other players are well versed in equivalent sounds. Bassist Joe Morris, better-known as a guitarist, has played with everyone from Augustí Fernández to Joe McPhee; pianist Jamie Saft in bands like like Matt Wilson’s; while tenor saxophonist Hery Paz works with Angelica Sanchez and others.

The inner workings of Inner involve Downs never indulging himself with percussion displays. Instead his darkened reverberations encompass ruffs, pumps and echoes. Morris stays in the background with broken chord pizzicato thumps and the occasional torqued bow thrusts. That gives Saft and Paz their heads.

Piano sequences modify intermittently and flowery on occasion, but mostly hunt-and-peck movement gives way to tense but tensile projections which clank hammers and slide across the keys to intersect with the drummer’s tom-tom resonations and the saxophonist’s speedy intensification or supple smears.

A fine instance is “Inner 4” where Paz’s stretched and vibrated snorts arise alongside Saft’s power pumps and Downs’ paradiddles. As reed slurs descend to drones, the pianist’s looser counter melody challenges it. Morris’ positioned arco sweeps add to the resulting tension that climaxes with stuttering saxophone growls.

Aided by yearning reed split tones, repeated ruffs, stopped piano keys and bass string strums, tautness is prolonged during the session, but never sinks to rigidity. Motifs such as animated piano key motion and reed flutter tonguing add contrasting vitality. By “Inner 5”, repeated reed-piano riffs give way to tolling drum raps to signal the conclusion.

Actuarial research suggests that the average human lifespan has increased to the nineties. Inner may just be the first of many Downs-led sessions.

–Ken Waxman

Track Listing: 1. Inner 1 2. Inner 2 3. Inner 3 4. Inner 4 5. Inner 5

Personnel: Hery Paz (tenor saxophone); Jamie Saft (piano); Joe Morris (bass) and Charles Downs (drums)