In June 1991, Charles Gayle, Milford Graves and William Parker played two nights at a hole-in-the-wall Lower East Side venue called Webo. By all accounts, they were the shows of New York City legend. Yet a recording hadn’t manifested; in fact, none of the powerhouse trio’s seven public performances made it to tape. But with WEBO, the music has finally been found and released. It’s a testament to the sheer magnitude of those special nights, and to the trio’s powerful voice, which continues to spark lightning thirty-three years later.
At the time of playing Webo, Gayle, Graves and Parker had only performed a couple of public shows together, yet they’re incredibly in sync, having a conversation so electric it feels like it could have struck from above. Though each player seamlessly meshes himself into the others, each digs deep into his own technique, too: Gayle excavates the saxophone’s blown-out, high range, Graves highlights the crashing and raucous cymbals that defined his intricate playing and Parker gets deep in his bow, unearthing the grit of his bass with each stroke. Together, their music explores these competing textures, sculpting kinetic sound worlds from the guts of their instruments.
Though the trio’s unparalleled technique sits at the core of this music, it’s propelled by their innate ability to know, together, when to hold back and when to let it all out. In a statement accompanying the album, Parker writes: “It is about hearing and feeling the vibrations, letting it go into the heart and soul.” And that is just what they do. Tracks like ‘B1’ build from a delicately woven rhythmic pattern that churns below soaring saxophone, gradually expanding into thunderous melodies that slowly fade into smoke. Later on, ‘D1’ opens with a few gnarly, sliding tones driven by Parker’s gravelly tremolos that fill every smashing beat like an engine revving at the start of a race. By the time Gayle’s saxophone squeals into the mix, the sustained intensity is nearly too much to bear – his instrument is in full gear, flying to a finish line through the pure sound of the saxophone untethered.
But at its heart, WEBO is an invitation to experience the joy, the fire and the magic that existed in the room on those fleeting nights. Closer ‘F3’ captures the evening’s lightning-in-a-bottle feeling the strongest: An airy whistle simmers between pummelling drums and staccato notes like a period at the end of a sentence that hasn’t gotten to the last word yet, building up energy with each punch. And then, at once, the trio lets themselves go completely. The room fills with the kind of earth-shattering noise that will live thirty years past its final echo and into the future.
