Parker, William & Drake, Hamid – “Summer Snow ” – [Aum Fidelity]

Daryl Licht   10/27/2007   CD, Jazz

I was very impressed with Parker and Drake???s first duo release, 2001???s ???Piercing The Veil???, so it was with much anticipation that I greeted their long awaited second volume of studio recordings ???Summer Snow???. Once again, Parker and Drake use an interesting assortment of instruments (doson’ngoni, shakuhachi, dumbek, water bowl, talking drum, frame drum, gongs, and tablas, in addition to their normal tools in the Jazz trade, the bass and drum kit) to create these intriguing, hypnotic, and beautiful tracks which incorporate Jazz improvisation with pan-global ethnic musical traditions. Although they apply a similar basic approach and instrumentation, this material on this set is decidely more focused on quieter, more meditative pieces and, as a result, I found this to be, overall, somewhat less impressive than ???Piercing The Veil???. Still, with excellent ethno-groovers like ???Sky???, ???Pahos???, and ???Faces???, there???s plenty of material to satisfy those who crave unique, genre-blurring sounds. DL