Asher Gamedze’s excellent “Turbulence and Pulse” starts off with the almost-title track, “Turbulence’s Pulse,” which features a thesis of sorts, with Gamedze laying out some thoughts about time in music and historical time: “One important thing about time in music, particularly in improvised music, free music, is the fact that time itself, the feeling of time, time’s movement, or signature, the sense of time, in front, behind, pushing and pulling in different directions, is very clearly produced by the group of musicians playing together….This is useful to remember when we think about history, what time in music—its nature as a collective product—teaches or reminds us about time in history is that time and how it moves is produced by people working together. For the oppressed, being dispossessed as we are of the means of movement, and being subject to the time of others, music is one space where we can autonomously articulate, define, and live in our own sense of time….Music time reminds us that history is also a collective product. History, the movement of historical time, is produced by people…The future will also be made by people, by us.” Gamedze finishes by saying that the album, or concept behind the album, is about the imperative and impulse to make time.
“Wynter Time,” the next track, shows what he’s talking about. Gamedze launches the track with some fidgety percussion, stickwork and light chimes, with the bass and horns also twitching with anticipation before they burst into the tune’s main statement, with the horns taking the lead on a slow, melancholic phrase. But the track doesn’t stay in that spot. Buddy Wells plays an astounding sax solo, though what feels like a solo turns into a dialogue with Thembinkosi Mavimbela’s bass (amazing playing here and all over the whole album), and then a full-on conversation with Gamedze’s drums too, and a slight lull until Robin Fassie’s trumpet enters, lurking at first and then sounding out more forcefully, more demonstratively. I think it’s this kind of dynamic that Gamedze means, a dilation of time, “pushing and pulling in different directions,” stretching things out—the kind of conversation that’s so good and so fascinating that it can sustain itself for hours, for a whole night.
Gamedze’s band here is incredible, and they clearly have such a good feel for playing with each other. There are countless moments throughout the album where the players set each other up in interesting and unexpected ways—like they all trust and have confidence in each other’s creativity. Gamedze in particular is a really striking player, not ever overly showy, but always up to some kind of business, on the edges, in the background. You can even hear him doing it live, on the three bonus cuts on the album, where he’s playing with a totally different band (these versions are so cool to hear, Chérif El-Masri’s guitar takes the lead on some of these in place of the horns, and it alters the whole charge of the song, “Melancholia” especially feels darker, more drastic). A really special album.