David S.Ware Quartet "Renunciation"

David S. Ware: tenor saxophone
Matthew Shipp: piano
William Parker: bass
Guillermo E. Brown: drums

Renunciation was recorded live at Vision Festival XI on June 18, 2006 at the Orensanz Art Center in New York City. It was posited as the last ever U.S. performance by David S. Ware’s revered Quartet. Featuring three profound new compositions (the beauty ballad Ganesh Sound, the epic Renunciation Suite centerpiece, and the condensed encore), this concert and exquisite recording thereof offers the Quartet at a new height of their powers. A magnificent performance by one of the greatest Jazz bands the world will ever know, and which may well indeed have been their very last here in the country which birthed them. -SJ

From the liner notes by David S. Ware:
"First of all I would like it to be clearly understood that I am in no way renouncing the work of the David S. Ware Quartet.

Now with the superficial put to rest, I can speak briefly about renunciation in the proper context. Renunciation meaning experiencing individuality as non-doer. In 1969 I had my first experience, while playing music, of what is called witnessing. Let me say first that this is not a meditative state. It is a spontaneous occurrence of what is called in the Vedic and Tantric teaching THE SELF, ATMA or even LORD SHIVA the SELF of all beings. It is beyond waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states. It is prior to the thought process and it is the foundation of self-realization, cosmic consciousness or enlightenment. In the many years since my first encounter, the practice of meditation and JAPA have made the ground more fertile for the experience to repeat itself in graceful moments. ..."

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