Saudades

With the exception of Miles Davis's Bitches Brew, Tony Williams's group Lifetime--the pioneering late '60s trio featuring organist Larry Young, and guitarist John McLauglin--wrote the book on jazz-rock fusion. This 2004 London concert features two former Miles sidemen as well as Jack DeJohnette, John Scofield, and Larry Goldings, who was contacted by Williams to join his band before his untimely death in 1997. It brilliantly updates music from Lifetime's seminal recordings Emergency! and Turn it Over. DeJohnette succeeded Williams in Davis's band, and his articulated drumming drives Scofield's blues-trenched, Hendrixian guitar licks and Goldings's evocative organ voicings, electric piano, and digital sampling. Their rewiring of the combustible blues "If," the spacey ballad "As One," and the rock-out numbers "Spectrum" and "Emergency" shows that this music is as durable as it is dynamic. The cooperatively composed title track further highlights Williams's never-ending influence and the exceptional improvisational acumen of these musicians. --Eugene Holley, Jr.