A demanding live duo performance from New York drummer William Hooker and Lithunian saxophonist Liudas Mockunas, performing at the 2013 Vilnius Jazz Festival. The playing is hard-edged, rugged and free playing, keeping a strong momentum from Hooker's unabating drive, maintaining a solid pulse without seeming to repeat himself. Mockunas has a thick confident approach to his playing, varying melodic riffs with trance-like playing. An album of edge-of the-seat and persuasive playing.
"Liudas Mockunas is a multi-reeds player and composer, whose name stands for masterly performance and intriguing compositions. His 'natural' idiom is an explosive mixture of free jazz, lyricism and expressionism combined with highly unconventional performance techniques. His in-depth exploration of the properties of sound lead to an innovative and personal approach to wind playing techniques. This allowed him to escape from stylistic conventions and form an entirely original style, distinguished for multiphonics, expressive discharges of sound, overbends and unusual sound effects. Trained as a jazz and classical musician, Liudas Mockunas has a deep understanding and practical knowledge of both fields, the boundaries of which he traverses back and forth in his own compositions." (Music Lithuania)
William Hooker is an American jazz drummer and composer. Hooker has performed as a leader of many ensembles of improvised and new music. "Recognized as an iconoclast, and one of the most innovative musicians and drummers of his generation, William knows no genre bounds and ceaselessly searches for new forms of music, always with the intent to inspire." Accompanying musicians have included: Billy Bang, Thurston Moore, David Murray, David S. Ware, William Parker, Melvin Gibbs, Donald Miller, DJ Olive, Elliott Sharp, Malachi Thompson, Zeena Parkins, Lee Ranaldo, DJ Spooky, Rob Brown, Roy Campbell, Mark Hennen, Steven Bernstein, Roy Nathanson, Jason Hwang, Dave Soldier, Sabir Mateen, Glenn Spearman, Joseph Celli, Ellen Christi, and many others." (Wikipedia)
