Review by Des Cowley.
MacDonald, Burke, Grabowsky, Haywood, Floyd
Dangerous Decision (FMR Records, CD & digital release)
This adventurous recording sees UK saxophonist Raymond MacDonald team up with a stellar group of Australian players: saxophonist Rob Burke, pianist Paul Grabowsky, bassist Nick Haywood, and drummer Antony Floyd. A long-term fixture within avant-garde circles, MacDonald has previously collaborated with artists such as Evan Parker, Fred Frith, Marilyn Crispell, as well as with Australian musicians Alister Spence and Lloyd Swanton.
Dangerous Decision – a gargantuan affair at over 70 minutes – was captured live at Brunswick’s Jazzlab in 2019, faithfully recorded by Advanced Diploma students from RMIT. It is intentionally pitched as a high-wire act, predicated on each musician bringing their ‘style’ to the collective table, facilitating a set of long-form improvisations that veer between abstraction and raucous energy.
The eleven-minute opener ‘Cosy Street’ finds Grabowsky firing off sustained flurries over which MacDonald parries and feints, squawking with rapid-fire runs. Before long, a solid funk beat materializes, allowing Burke to cut loose, before ceding to Grabowsky’s exploratory and abstract incursions, the whole shebang ending with a free-for-all groove-laden finale.
While most compositions are credited to MacDonald, the performance includes a radical revamp of Albert Ayler’s ‘Ghosts’, which sees the quintet building tension, ever-so-slowly, before unleashing Ayler’s searing melody, a wailing cry augmented by duelling saxes and rumbling piano. Co-led by MacDonald and Burke, these musicians clearly arrived at the Jazzlab with their game-face on, intent on melding their musical personalities to concoct high-level ‘in the moment’ improvisations. As avant-garde as this music sounds, it equally draws sustenance from the collective spirit of jazz’s origins.