Commitment
Commitment, The Complete Recordings 1981/1983
No Business Records
www.nobusinessrecords.com
By George W. Harris

Commitment was a “cooperative” quartet made up of Jason Kao Hwang/v, Will Connell Jr./reeds, William Parker/b and Drummer Zen Matsuura. During their 5 years together from 79-84, which were a high water mark for “The Loft Era” (meaning free form) jazz, they put out only one album. This two disc set includes that album and a concert recording from Europe in 1983.

The studio tunes range from short meditations like “Mountain Song” to wide ranging opuses like the eleven minute No Name. The concert does a revisitation of the languid “Grassy Hills, The Sun” while the rest of the show are long self-indulgent pieces that must have been seen to have been appreciated. The amazing thing about this music that is labeled “avant garde” is that it tends to stand up fairly poorly after time. Shouldn’t music that is described as “ahead of it’s time” sound contemporary instead of dated? Hmmm.