What Is Art Music?
A lot of brass can counsel something bold and a woodwind dominate piece might be suggesting a softer, more refined temper. Lowlands of Sorrow is set to a 6/8 rhythm, opening with Parker’s bass taking half in a repeated four-bar lick in D-flat minor before the horns and drums enter. Although Lewis has a wealthy tenor tone, it is a vibratoless, tubular sound, very like those of Rollins or Coltrane, except that at instances his sound has extra of an “edge” to it, a bit of a rasp which he provides or removes because the spirit strikes him. On this track, after his solo, he repeats a brief motif beneath Knuffke’s solo, then indulges in some honking which, to be trustworthy, didn’t interest me a lot, however general his enjoying and that of the group as a whole is splendid. And this time, when Knuffke re-enters, he’s not a relaxing …