Frank Lowe — The Loweski

"The Loweski", is an until now unreleased recording from 1973 by the late Frank Lowe, free jazz tenor saxophonist.  It is a deeply uncomfortable, raucous cacophany, one of the most genuinely abrasive recordings I've heard, and definitely the noisiest 'free jazz' this side of Borbetomagus, who make a close comparison, and were likely influenced by Lowe.  There is never a chance of tonality or consistent rhythmic structure.  The sounds of the horns are more like screaming animals than sequences of melodic pitches.  The wholly improvised album is divided into 5 sections, but also flows as one continuous performance.  From track to track, the instrumentation changes slightly.

The first piece is a solo performance with a wonderful range of dynamics and tones, an ode to the raw expressive power of the saxophone, all of its wonderfully torn and imperfect skronks and bleats, shaped by the flecks of spit caught in the mouth piece and the unrestrained whims of Lowe himself.  In the softer moments the tone rounds out for a couple of moments at time, hinting at the soul behind, who could easily play a note or melody if ever he chose, but never does, at least not on this record.

In the second track, Lowe and his band seem primarily fascinated with earsplitting altissimo and high frequencies.  It's also the longest track at 12 minutes, and with all 5 members playing at full tilt for most of the duration, this one is hard to get through.  The drummer engages in tumultuous waves and surges of fills which propel the piece forward into a final solo from Lowe which sounds a lot like repeatedly dry heaving.

In the third movement, a guitar with electric distortion is introduced in the left speaker.  The muted strings are roughly strummed with some agitation, allowing only rough atonal plucking sounds to escape.  This shorter track segues smoothly into part 4, where we get a slight bit more conventional musicality and actually hear some frantic, caffeinated walking basslines, struggling to track an ever-fluctuating tempo.  Lowe contributes brash chromatic scalar runs, the angered protest of a territorial insect.

The final piece on the album begins aggressive (like much of the rest of the album) for the first few minutes, but the ending turns in a more fascinating and eerie direction, with some ominous bowed bass notes alternating to and fro in a fashion not unlike the theme from Jaws, peppered here and with bursts of fills from the drums, hinting at a massive restrained tension.  This ending seems to give the entire album more of a narrative meaning, and in fact the album as a whole has is somewhat of a grower, possessing this quality of seeming more interesting after the fact than it did at the time.  The more I've listened to this recording, the more I notice how much depth and variation it actually has.

This album will be enjoyable only to the most 'out' jazz heads, but for those few it may be a rare cerebral pleasure, deeply inventive in its burning, uncompromising ferocity.  Anyone not already accustomed to music of this style will be able to find little meaning or organization to any of the sound, so those people would be best advised to start with Coleman or Mingus.  Certainly, even if this sound did seem to make perfect sense to you, that would not dull the cutting sharpness of its underlying violence.  Ultimately, though, I cannot criticize Frank Lowe for this, as I don't think he intended it to be any other way.  I am quite glad we can still experience new music from the 70's, a golden era of experimental jazz, and that Lowe's voice has been preserved.  To this day, it communicates some kind of indescribable interdimensional wisdom.  Highly recommended for truly adventurous listeners.