Half Notes: David S. Ware/ Cooper-Moore/ William Parker/ Muhammad Ali – Planetary Unknown (2011)

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photo: Dave Kaufman

It’s got a cool looking cover, the names on that cover are all giants in the improvised music field, and the rapport is what you’d expect from free jazz pros like these. Those attributes in itself will probably get Planetary Unknown on some year-end lists and it’s already one at least one half-year one. But aside from Ware/Ali “Duality Is One,” (YouTube) below) an updated take on Coltrane/Rashied Ali’s let-it-all-hang-out Interstallar Space duet sessions, these songs, all created as the tape rolled, lack the direction and focus of, say, Ware’s Oncecept from last year (which also included Parker). Any collection of emerging whack jazzers making a record like this would deserve to take a bow. These guys, on the other hand, can do better.

Planetary Unknown, by AUM Fidelity, hit the streets last June 14.

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S. Victor Aaron