They’re back together again, though they’ve never really been apart. Drake and Anderson have been musical partners now for three decades, first recording together way back in 1978 (Anderson’s Moers album Another Place). Since then, Drake has become one of the busiest and most admired drummers in free jazz, celebrated for the buoyant world-music grooves he elaborates on hand-drums or on the regular kit. Anderson, one of the less heralded members of Chicago’s AACM, at last began to receive his due in the 1990s, as Okkadisk and Delmark set out to document his music properly. Anticipation for their first duo album, Back Together Again, was thus understandably high; indeed, its packaging already suggests history in the making: the disc is a monumental 73 minutes in length, and comes with a bonus multimedia CD featuring footage of three complete performances and two extended interviews. Yet all this build-up does the music something of a disservice: though there is good music here, this is well short of a major document, and it’s hard not to feel slightly disappointed as a result. Drake’s drumming is as good as ever: with each piece he uncovers yet another attractive groove (though he could have stood to vary the tempos more). Anderson’s sound is lovely and melancholy; he has a patient way with his phrasing, and his lines rarely stray far from their blues/r’n’b roots. But he seems unable to raise the temperature or move past an improvisation’s initial premises: on “Louisiana Strut,” for instance, he riffs tepidly for nine minutes, in the teeth of some of Drake’s hottest drumming. Other tracks come off better: “Leap Forward,” for instance, is a memorable performance, built atop overdubbed layers of hand-drums. That track and a few others are enough to make Back Together Again well worth hearing; but this is still a perplexingly middleweight record from these two heavyweight players.

Nate Dorward

Coda