Noah Howard
At Judson Hall

The album in question is one of the most interesting jazz offerings from 1968 even though the two live recordings date back to the majestic series of "free concerts" from October 1966 with participants like Albert Ayler, Sun Ra, Burton Greene, Sonny Simmons. It was the embryonic period of the recording debut of the saxophonist from New Orleans, first in a studio quartet (Apotheosis), then live with an expanded five-member formation where, among the classic instruments of the genre, the cello of Cathrine Norris and the piano, always elevated to the massive level of the Cecil Taylor by Dave Burrell, stand out.

In the studio, Noah Howard tends to curl up in a hermetic play of overtones and reed modulations, while in concert he reveals a skillful mastery of the alto sax with sinuous harmonies continually overlapped with sprightly improvisations, sudden mood changes that link into a fluid and disenchanted crescendo to the rhythmic-experimental register of John Coltrane. He dedicates to the latter a nineteen-minute performance, likely his historical masterpiece, full of pathos and so tragically developed that it almost foretells the sudden departure of the Genius of Hamlet that would occur in just a few months.

Gradually, the form of sound-music builds with circular movements, constricting and opening both in time and space, in conflict with the stasis of the cello, which is the collective's weak point; this recalls Ornette's strings from old New York concerts, almost deliberately trying to imitate him. Risking, Howard's sax guides the other soloists in rhythmic repetitions with a good dose of melody that distances him, at least live, from his disharmonic colleagues. It is the undisputed master of the patient and complex building of elementary models that become a weave of intransigent compatibility, thus discreetly and viscerally distancing itself from the violent resonance of certain anarchic free jazz.

Noah Howard, like Coltrane, remained intimately bound by the flowing melodic lines of Charlie Parker and, like Coleman, was able to react well to the rules of traditional improvisation by proposing an approach to new black music not necessarily reactionary, which earned him, posthumously, the sympathy of the more emotionally attached fans of the genre. From his earliest public appearances, like the one at Judson Hall in New York City, Howard was able to create a psycho-sonic ecstasy based especially on the linear exchange between ensemble digression and continuously self-generating themes without leaving the listener the material time to actually realize the continuous phasing of the various instruments in play. The autonomous lines of piano, bass, and percussion are not perceived as detached; rather, even though they are all deliberately solo, they blend so much into one another in a purely melodic and rhythmic polycentrism that leaves the listener perplexed, almost in a trance-like state.