by Thom JurekThis is free improvisation at its best and at its worst. At its best because this trio of Doneda on soprano saxophone, Paul Rogers on bass, and Quan Ninh on percussion zoo all know what they're after; they'd been playing together long enough to find common ground quickly and move toward the margins to get it. By and large they get it. Doneda's short, clipped lines recalling the Steve Lacy of the 1960s; Quan Ninh's percussive boombastics using every splinter of wood, broken gong piece of metal, and plastic in the house; and Rogers being the only bassist aside from William Parker or Charles Mingus to dwarf a double bass. They communicate well in the circle, carrying ideas and languages back and forth between them with aplomb and even grace. Doneda, in particular, with his multiphonic approach to the horn, getting three tones from it at once echoing his own microtones and handing them freely to Rogers, who slides directly to the top of the register to answer and feed Quan Ninh. But this is also free improvisation at its worst for some of the same reasons. At this level, where the communication is so intrinsic, so instinctive and instinctual, the language spoken is totally free of conceptualization and therefore context. Without context there is no room for an audience to participate in that language; they can only appreciate it for the dynamics, the sense of drama, or the array of tongues seemingly spoken. And there's nothing wrong with this -- if the date is recorded properly. This one sounds like sh*t; half the gig is lost in whispers, ghostly textures, and feedback from the PA system, making a private language almost non-approachable as music. (Rogers' bass is played by sheer force; what you can hear of him is pure soul because his pickup wasn't working.) So in this case, the music gets impossibly high marks, but its presentation is basement-level quality.