No Kings!
No Kings!
JACC Records 59 (jaccrecords.bandcamp.com/album/no-kings)
Recorded in 2022, before the U.S. anti-Trump No Kings protests, the 78 minutes of creative sounds by this quartet exemplify the freedom totalitarians abhor. Americans, tenor saxophonist John Dikeman, bassist William Parker and percussionist Hamid Drake, plus Portuguese trumpeter Luís Vicente are perfectly in sync as they propel sound variations ranging from brass portamento and staccato triplets, the reedist’s renal growls, elevated screams or multiphonic shredding and powerful ambulating bass and drum action, without one overwhelming the others’ assertions as President Donald Trump has done to other U.S. government branches.
Despite a mid-point tempo acceleration the quartet vigorously maintains a steady pulse of drum backbeats and walking bass lines. This takes place even with unexpected interjections from Parker’s gimbri strums or wooden flute peeps that are matched by Vicente’s bell shakes and bamboo flute whistles and Drake’s frame drum vibrations. Together these interjections neatly intensify the exposition of stretched staccato trumpet smears and hearty reed scoops and honks.
The group groove attained remains even after a pause for prolonged audience applause followed by a brief recapitulation of brass tongue flutters and ascending reed tongue twists. Modulating among free-form exploration and carefully positioned narratives, this group of No Kings! defines effective and perceptive group interaction while metaphorically suggesting what pre-MAGA American democracy used to resemble.
