Having established a reputation as an innovative jazz guitarist throughout his 30-year career, Rez Abbasi continues to polish his style as his music reflects his thoughts about changing life events.
The event that led to the recording of his seventeenth album, Sound Remains, was the passing of his mother. Abbasi’s meditations about the eternal permanence of change and the impermanence of life inspired his development of a suite of compositions that reinforces his ever-evolving awareness.
Abbasi makes public the comforting sounds that he hears during his heightened consciousness through a return to his Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quartet (RAAQ). For, as Abbasi explains, “When I reach that space, often the only thing that remains is sound.”
Perhaps he returned to acoustic guitar because of its purity of sound as he transmits concepts and sentiments directly through the strings. Abbasi’s choice for Sound Remains, though, is his steel acoustic guitar, his elegant articulation on which highlights his technical mastery and his emotional bearing.
Once again, Abbasi has convened for recording purposes the members of the RAAQ who have participated in his recordings since 2010’s Natural Selection album. But this time “RAAQ” is an acronym for the Rez Abbasi Acoustic Quintet. The addition of percussionist Hasan Bakr, the fifth member, creates more intricate textures to support the understated ethereality…of the guitar.
…And of the vibes, which Bill Ware again plays as an empathetic counterpart, nudged by the guitar and filling spaces with floating tones.
Drummer Eric McPherson completes the RAAQ quintet, as he had before when RAAQ was a quartet. The immediacy of the group’s musical exchanges—and its members’ mutual understanding of the spiritual nature of Abbasi’s project—deepen the impact, and amplify the success, of the music on Sound Remains. All of one mind, the members of RAAQ, ten years later, immediately pick up where they left off.
Abbasi kicks off the album with a rousing ten-second solo phrase on “Presence.” Then, the other members of the group emerge, presenting the uplifting sound that Abbasi sought. The composition’s first section of a minor-key theme in a rippling meter of 12/8 contrasts with its second slower section of descending harmonies. Abbasi and Ware improvise with the controlled energy of seasoned musicians, avoiding extravagance and remaining within the respectful mood of the piece.
Next, “You Are” provides a more structured framework in three of haunting quarter notes over which Abbasi develops a quickened and intense personal statement, as do Ware and McPherson.
“Folk’s Song” and “Spin Dream” address Abbasi’s pondering about mortality, though in varying styles. “Folk’s Song’s” gracefulness rises from the gentle call and response and then the combined melody/accompaniment of Abbasi and Ware’s fluid two-minute duet. “Spin Dream,” an expansion of “Folk’s Song’s” theme by encompassing the circle-of-life concept, returns to the percussive nature of “Presence.” “Spin Dream” veers between a stirring groove and a steady bass line, the result of Abbasi’s recognized individualistic ability to combine Asian and Western cultures in a single piece.
As on other RAAQ albums, Abbasi includes other musicians’ compositions that support his vision for the album. This time, he features Keith Jarrett’s “Questar” as a tribute to the pianist’s albums, such as Shades, with percussionist Guillermo Franco—an inspiration for recording Sound Remains with Hasan Bakr. The quintet interprets John Coltrane’s “Lonnie’s Lament” with a rubato two-minute introduction of pearlescent beauty. Then—embellished by Ware’s purling and chiming vibes, bassist Stephan Crump’s resounding bass lines, and McPherson’s complex textures—Abbasi creates on fretless guitar a remarkable solo consistent with Coltrane’s spirituality. The brilliance of his improvisation reminds listeners why Abbasi has been one of the leading jazz guitarists for more than three decades.
Rez Abbasi’s sound began when he was a teenager. And his own sound not only remains; it has continuously ascended to ever-higher levels.
Artist’s Web Site: www.reztone.com
Label’s Web Site: www.whirlwindrecordings.com/
