DKV Trio - Live in Wels & Chicago 1998 2cds

Musicians

Hamid Drake — drums

Kent Kessler — bass

Ken Vandermark — tenor sax

Cover and Artwork

graphic design: L.E. Molnar
photography: Rebecca Gleason
art design: Adrienne Pierluissi

Songs

Wels CD
1. Part 1 (7:12)
2. Part 2 (4:58)
3. Part 3 (13:53)
4. Part 4 (4:17)
5. Part 5 (9:22)
6. Memory Sketch (for Don Cherry) (4:10)
Total Time: 43:55

Chicago CD
1. Open Door (30:52)
2. Blues for Tomorrow (19:12)
3. Burning Sky (23:05)

Total Time: (73:09)

Recording Info

Wels CD recorded at:
“Music Unlimited 98” Festival
November 8, 1998

Chicago CD recorded at:

Velvet Lounge, Chicago
November 20 & 21, 1998
recorded by: John McCortney

mixed by & mastered by: John McCortney
Airwave Recording Studios
September 23, 1999

produced by: Ken Vandermark & Joe Morris
executive producer: Bruno Johnson

[This] double live set is powerful, especially the Wels disc, recorded at the Music Unlimited Festival, November 8th, 1998. At Wels, the DKV Trio (Hamid Drake on drums, Kent Kessler on bass, and Ken Vandermark on reeds) rips confidently and creatively through “Complete Communion Suite”, a forty-four minute tour de force improvised off Don Cherry’s joyous “Complete Communion” theme. Excellent recording quality. It’s been a while since a double bass has sounded so muscular and commanding, kudos to Kessler. Drake is stunning on the traps, using sticks and hands to hypnotic and dynamic effect, seeming aligned with higher powers. Vandermark deepens and diversifies his attack to include some restrained melodic interludes along with trademark energy carvings, especially on tenor. The three-quarter hour program vanishes in a blink, culminating in a sensitive denouement, “Memory Sketch (For Don Cherry)”. You half-believe the gypsy piper who inspired this music will enter at the end to blow a few last, lingering notes on his pocket trumpet. Essential.

The Chicago disc, recorded less than two weeks after Wels at Fred Anderson’s Velvet Lounge, has three extended performances. After the Wels disc’s jubilant triumph, this is more restrained, yet determined in its moods. Hamid Drake is magical on “Open Door”. Damn, he’s magical throughout! Less immediate in impact, the Velvet Lounge sets reveals more on further listens. The DKV Trio has, with this two-disc set, become a band worthy of space in any collection of seminal improvised music.

— Doug Lang, Coda, issue 294 (November/December 2000)