World Saxophone Quartet

W.S.Q. is the World Saxophone Quartet recorded in Brooklyn in March 1980 and issued by Black Saint, four saxophonists with no rhythm section: Hamiet Bluiett, Julius Hemphill, Oliver Lake and David Murray. The group formed in 1976, when Ed Jordan, chairman of the music department at Southern University in New Orleans, invited the four to a series of seminars and concerts. Bluiett, Hemphill and Lake came from the Black Artists Group of St. Louis, and their debut, Point Of No Return, had come out in 1977 as an almost entirely improvised set.

The album was recorded and mixed at Sound Heights Studios in Brooklyn by engineer Vince Traina, with Giovanni Bonandrini as executive producer. Bluiett plays baritone saxophone and alto clarinet, Hemphill alto and tenor, Lake alto, tenor and soprano, and Murray tenor and bass clarinet. Each member wrote for the band. Hemphill has three pieces, Plain Song, the eight-minute Connections and Pillars Latino. Lake brings the title track and Sound Light, Bluiett the opener Sundance, and Murray the closing Fast Life. At the centre sits Suite Music, four short movements under five and a half minutes: The Key, Ballad For Eddie Jefferson, Pam-Maw and Hattie Wall. The whole record lasts a little over forty minutes.

This is the Black Saint CD 120046-2, a reissue of the album first released on LP in 1981 as BSR 0046, with the eight original tracks.