Paul Murphy & Larry Willis - Excursions

Wicked Chops

Music’s value resides in its ability to be heard. A simple axiomatic statement, but one at the crux of this release by drummer Paul Murphy and pianist Larry Willis. The two first circulated the fruits of their partnership under the auspices of a recording contract for Mapleshade. Funds for a follow-up to their two volume duo project weren’t forthcoming so five years later the pair has taken it upon themselves to bring one to light. Willis has a fifty-year career in jazz, his talents at the ivories having graced sessions by a cross-section of jazz dignitaries among them Jackie McLean, Woody Shaw and Clifford Jordan. Murphy was the firing piston behind several of altoist Jimmy Lyons bands and more recently the likes of Glenn Spearman and Marco Eneidi. He’s also among the more melodically astute drummers practicing today with a talent for combining muscle with finesse, a compound on full display on the disc’s solo percussion title piece.

As Willis asserts in his brief notes, his and Murphy’s chosen jazz tributaries aren’t so far removed. Their rapport is evident from the opening “A Prayer for All Ages”, a meditative modal piece with a gospelish overtones. The largely improvised program follows a subtle, but noticeable narrative arc with early pieces hewing more to structured designs and later ones dipping into a freer interaction. Willis’ digital dexterity is formidable throughout, his fingers telegraphing cross patterns that express rich lyricism with slipping into languor. There are several passages where his playing errs into the overly ornate, but more often he tempers sentiment with an abiding pragmatism. Stern block chords advance the dialogue on “Night Fall”, rising and falling against the foundation of his partner’s steady stick play. An arch colorist and master of percussive texture, Murphy responds with tumbling polyrhythms that roll and crest like waves on an eddying tide and fill in the cracks in the pianist’s constructions. “Dance of the Sun Sisters” and “Sonny’s Quantum Leap” sound like slabs of early Cecil blended with shards of Byard as strident chords ride out over a shifting cymbal and snare spray. Murphy and Willis are really on to something here and while the package may be bare bones in appearance, the transparently recorded music within is anything but.

~ Derek Taylor