Yearn for Certainty

William Hooker is a veteran of the creative improvising music scene, equally adept at post-Sunny Murray free bop bash or delicately weaving multicolored textures of percussion instruments. The poetic part of Hooker comes out on this recording, as does high-energy music and a more swinging element in tandem with Sabir Mateen on woodwinds and string player David Soldier, he of the famed Soldier String Quartet. Hooker's pulse is always present, but is constantly reinvented to suit each spontaneous composition with a varying dynamic level. Soldier's Spanish acoustic guitar and the wordplay of Hooker prove absolutely insightful during "Ingratiated Beam — Leroy," inspired a bit by beat generation imagery and organic life, accented by phrases like "no TV — sweet!" A modified rhythm & blues beat from Hooker's drum kit sets off a groove dance between Soldier's banjo and Mateen's tenor sax for the entirety of the short "Century's Soles," while the rhythmic swing of "Commonplace Travel" is slowed, but more jazz-oriented as the activity of the threesome builds. There's up-and-down free floating, punctuated by the pithy clarinet of Mateen, and the band does go into a free bop assault, wailing loud and proud, then silenced. The different high-level techniques of these three skilled musicians make anything possible, and you hear most of it on this fine recording that absolutely requires a follow-up effort. ~ Michael G. Nastos, Rovi