William Parker: Mayan Space Station
AUM Fidelity

You'll sometimes see the ‘free jazz' label attached to William Parker—the Village Voice once described him as “the most consistently brilliant free jazz bassist of all time,” for example—but the label's best applied with respect to sensibility rather than style. In being so adventurous and unbounded, Parker veritably personifies the spirit of liberation. Look no further than Mayan Space Station, which sees the double bassist partnering with electric guitarist Ava Mendoza and drummer Gerald Cleaver in a blistering set of psych rock. While the outfit naturally calls to mind fellow flamethrower Hedvig Mollestad and her own trio, Parker's burns even more intensively, however hard that might be to believe. Don't be surprised if your thoughts also gravitate to Sonny Sharrock, early McLaughlin, and Hendrix as the music plays.

After entering the music scene in the early ‘70s, Parker's recorded over 150 albums and played with many a jazz great, Don Cherry and Cecil Taylor among them. Yet even with such mileage behind him, Parker's still up for pursuing new directions. Recorded in February 2020 at Park West Studios in Brooklyn, Mayan Space Station features six Parker originals midwifed into being with authority by simpatico space travelers. The trio came together easily: Cleaver's performed with Parker on numerous projects, and Mendoza played with him during his July 2019 residency at The Stone.

The opener “Tabasco” immediately engages when Cleaver and Parker lay down a hypnotic, unwavering pulse that Mendoza strafes with wicked riffing. After she brings a blues-inflected snarl to “Rocas Rojas,” “Domingo” largely slows the pace for a rather meditative expression, with Cleaver's percussion and Parker's bass as prominent in the mix as Mendoza's scalding guitar. In a sense, the recording splits into two parts, with three relatively concise statements followed by three extended performances ranging from ten to nearly fifteen minutes.

In the title track, Cleaver and Parker whip up a skipping groove that's almost hoe-down-like, with the bassist eventually thickening the density with bowing and Mendoza unleashing some of the album's most psychedelic sounds. Furious bowing, cymbal showers, and droning guitar textures give “Canyons of Light” a decidedly trippy quality, the effect intensified when regulated metre is suspended for a free-flowing swarm. At album's end, “The Wall Tumbles Down” surprises in initially featuring a swinging groove not too far removed from conventional jazz, but Mendoza's lethal fire ensures it never settles in too comfortably.

Even when Parker's operating within a particular milieu, it's only natural for other elements to seep in. Yes, Mayan Space Station is nominally psych rock, but jazz and blues enter into the mix too, with all such flavours merging into a fireball-like mass. As the sole front-liner, considerable pressure rests on Mendoza's shoulders, but this endlessly inventive shredder rises to the occasion fabulously. Her imagination and energy never flag as the three roar through these at times volcanic explorations.

July 2021