2 Days In April

This two-CD set documents a pair of 1999 performances — one at UMASS Amherst, the other at MIT — by an astonishing quartet. Tenor saxophonists Fred Anderson of Chicago and Kidd Jordan of New Orleans are supported by bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, and the results are breathtaking and trance-inducing. The music has a sustained ecstatic fire that is clearly indebted to 1960s free jazz, but also demonstrates an evolution from that; they’re not seeking to blast the listener out of his or her preconceptions (about swing, melody, conventional harmony, etc.), just to ride the wave as far as it’ll take them. Both Anderson and Jordan were key figures in their home cities, and these concerts find them comparing and contrasting each other’s styles, not finding a middle ground so much as creating a space for friendly coexistence as the never-ending groove washes around their ankles.