Jack Wright, Ben Wright

2014 release  ** "As if anything could be the same is a duet album by the father and son team of saxophonist Jack Wright and contrabassist Ben Wright . In the world of improvised music, or non-idiomatic improvised music if one must, Jack Wright is a seminal figure. A self-taught bluegrass and folk musician as a youth, and later a history professor at Temple University, Wright's trajectory out of "normal" life coincided with his burgeoning political activism during the early 1970s. His subsequent involvement in improvised music followed soon after, though his first recording (Free Life Singing , Spring Garden Music, 1982) didn't appear until the early 1980s. All along, Wright has been a tireless champion of improvised music, actively seeking out gigs in remote areas where exposure to improvised music was nil; a veritable Johnny Appleseed of improvisation. "As If" is contrapuntal and interactive, perhaps the most conventionally jazz-like piece on the album. Here, Jack's burnished soprano tone is (unintentionally) reminiscent of Steve Lacy, and the interplay with his son's arco bass is playful, even whimsical. Each piece, however, unfolds in its own unique way as father and son test each other then pause for a brief embrace, ignore and then listen intently to some disembodied inner voice, never truly following and yet never purposely diverging. Each piece, however, has more than a few gem-like moments of clarity, where the musical whole is more than the sum of the parts."