While the music on this disc stands as yet another fine addition to
Kahil El'Zabar's catalogue of collaborative jazz science, it should be noted first that this trio date is the final recording session of the late bassist
Fred Hopkins, who died of heart disease six months after they were completed. Upon first listen, the striking and remarkable thing about
Love Outside of Dreams sounds like a trio that had been playing together for no less than five or ten years. It's not just the intuition or the way in which
Murray's and
El'Zabar's tunes are executed, but the sheer and very muscular musicality the band plays with. This is music with a lot of improvisational fire at its center, yet, because of the strength and communication between the players, the nature of the music, it's affirmative and empathetic need to reach out of itself, is articulated with great verve by the trio. The opener and title track features
Murray moving through the melodic statement and theme unencumbered by the rhythm section's simultaneous insistence to swing. He makes it knotty and complex, and then allows himself to open to their groove -- which is considerable. On
Murray's "Song for a New South Africa,"
El'Zabar adopts hand percussion to open, and
Murray borrows a line from
Dudu Pakwana to create an evolving thematic scheme. It begins and moves toward another melody before returning and then incorporates that line into a funky kind of break that
El'Zabar tempers before
Hopkins comes in to mediate with a loping pizzicato, played sparely and in the pocket. "Meditation for the Celestial Warriors" is dedicated to
Hopkins and his former bandmate, the late
Steve McCall.
Murray's beautiful, warm tone, always rough on the edges, wafts like a wisp of smoke over the African thumb piano, blowing low and mournful. Spirits and ghosts are in the center between them as they intone, a sad prayer that simultaneously pays tribute and remembers. The minor-key swing of
Murray's "The Ebullient Duke" is a marked difference in the proceedings, but it is also the place where
Hopkins shines brightest, curling around the drum kit and popping deep blues riffs in the accents, which
Murray clearly feeds off of when he begins to quote loosely from
Ellington.
Hopkins ups the ante three different times in the improvisation, turning the original tune inside out before turning it on itself one more time top bring it back. He swings so hard that no matter what's going on, he cannot be diverted from his purpose. It's a beautiful cut and a fitting send off for
Hopkins, one of the most durable and enduring bassists of the free jazz era. ~ Thom Jurek