Kalaparush And The Light

Kalaparush and the Light is all about longevity and sustaining the spirit against all odds. Two of the members of the trio, Jesse Dulman (tuba) and Ravish Momin (drums) weren’t even born when Kalaparush Maurice McIntyre (tenor sax) first recorded under the band name. McIntyre is one of the founding members of Chicago’s avant-garde jazz collective the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). He played tenor sax with the Roscoe Mitchell Septet on the AACM’s first recording in 1966 (for Delmark Records) and has been involved with the organisation ever since. In the ’70s he went to Europe with Muhal Richard Abrams’ ensemble and later on taught at Karl Berger’s Creative Music School in Woodstock, NY. Even though McIntyre now lives in Brooklyn he has not lost any of the AACM’s singular drive for experimentation and creativity. Like fellow AACM alumnus Fred Anderson, McIntyre places a lot of emphasis on the history of jazz in his music moving out from bop into open territory. Again working with Delmark, the label of choice for many of Chicago’s best jazz and blues artists, McIntyre has put together a sublime set of tunes on Morning Song. The trio of tenor sax, tuba and drums is unusual in itself but it is never offered up as novelty. The musicians play a wide range of sonorities taking us through free jazz, bop and even tango to wherever the music leads them. Recommended.