Customer Reviews

Dao

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have heard most of Ware's recordings, and for me, DAO is his finest hour, recorded in September 1995, and released in 1996. His ecstatic playing, along with the working quartet of the mid-1990s with Matthew Shipp on piano, William Parker on bass, and Whit Dickey on drums, can be relentless, as on CRYPTOLOGY. On DAO, the music opens up, and achieves a rare balance of energy and meditativeness. In that sense, the comparisons to Coltrane's A LOVE SUPREME are quite apt, although Ware is inspired as much or more by Albert Ayler and his teacher Sonny Rollins as by Coltrane.

I would recommend DAO to anyone looking to check out this contemporary representative of the wild, holy tradition of 1960s free jazz. CRYPTOLOGY, also on Homestead, recorded a year earlier in 1994, is another fine album -- I would say they're his two best. The original line-up of the DSW Quartet had been a regular band for several years by the mid-1990s, and they attained a very high level of communication. I hope that Aum Fidelity, the label that replaced Homestead, will reissue CRYPTOLOGY and DAO soon. In the meantime, track down used copies by all means!

(verified purchase from Cadence Magazine)

Dao has many great moments but seems to move along very slowly with little variety. Dao has been compared to Love Supreme and Meditations but for me it doesn't work on that level. Shipp seems out of place but Parker is, as usual, very strong.