Live at Dreher, Paris 1981: The Peak, Vol. 2

by Thom JurekThis second double-CD set represents the final two nights of the stand Mal Waldron and Steve Lacy performed at Dreher in Paris. Where the previous two sets featured only two Lacy compositions, with the others by Monk and Waldron, this second volume opens with no less than four Lacy compositions with six overall, two versions each of Monk's "Epistrophy" and "Well You Needn't," as well as one of the most stunning versions of "Let's Call This" ever recorded. We also get Waldron's "Hooray for Herbie," which is sort of a signature composition that he and Lacy lay down together each time they duet. What separates these two discs from the first two is the emphasis on Lacy's own works. He loves the piano, so there's no shortage of harmonic extensions for Waldron to play with, in which he uses his well honed classical technique to change intervals and modes in Lacy's tunes with alacrity. His long solo in "Bone," is an example of how Waldron takes any thing he can find musically and transforms it with his grace and technique. He pulls in ideas from Stravinsky's ballets, Debussy's "Preludes," Herbie Nichols, Bill Evans, Scott Joplin, and even Howlin' Wolf, stringing them together in harmonic intervals that hold at their root Lacy's melody. Lacy's coloring of phrases with his melody becomes a different kind of lyricism when pasted over Waldron's open, modal chords. On disc two, where the pair move into the stellar "Let's Call This," Lacy kicks it off, smattering the melody with a skewed sense of time, and Waldron follows by playing it straight. It's a fascinating juxtaposition because Waldron is playing these huge Gershwin-like chords and Lacy, in his trademark fashion, is tonally bending the horn to fit its nutty, knot-like lyrical line. When Waldron starts to move toward Lacy's rhythmic line, he shortens the breadth of his chords and calls in a Joplin melody to play on top of Monk's bassline and Lacy begins finger poppin' in syncopation! Whew. The fact that proceeding are two more Monk tunes, ending with a relaxed but harmonically extrapolated version of "Well You Needn't," is to say that there isn't another set of duets like this anywhere in the jazz history. When two musicians can speak like this it is a bit spooky: they aren't mirrored images of one another, they speak with the same voice melodically, rhythmically, and harmonically. In other words, it is very much like hearing one man play soprano and piano at once.