Peaks and Valleys
Teri Parker’s Free Spirits
Modica Music (teriparkermusic.com)
Paying homage to two irreplaceable legends of improvised music, Peaks and Valleys is about as refreshing, moving and ingenious as a tribute can be. Playing two pieces each from the expansive works of Geri Allen and Mary Lou Williams, Toronto pianist Teri Parker’s group makes the absolute most of them, with these renditions being sobering in their clarity and the care taken in bringing out every nuance of the original recordings, while feeling like something entirely new is constantly taking place.
Geri Allen’s classic Drummer’s Song starts out as exactly that, with Mackenzie Longpre’s exhilarating drum intro slyly and gradually implying the song’s central pulse, and then when Allison Au enters with the saxophone ostinato near the one-minute mark, everything somehow perfectly falls into place, a moment that captures that intangible feeling of rhythmic alchemy unique to Allen’s music, where a listener is fully along for the ride without ever entirely reaching an understanding of why all these moving parts are so perfect for each other.
Parker’s own original pieces comprise the other half of the tracklist, with some containing more easily identifiable parallels to the album’s influences (Gemini II for example, both shares a title with an iconic Mary Lou Williams piece and an opening progression that could easily be a nod to her later period). Others, like the mesmerizing, goosebump-inducing Bear Hug, sound like a heartfelt message expressed entirely sonically, the kind that offers receiving ears a sense of belonging.
