Recorded at the dawn of the new millennium, Emancipation Proclamation: A Real Statement of Freedom is one of those avant jazz duet dates that puts everything else in perspective by revealing at its heart that anything is possible when conditions are right. There are five tracks here, three of them over ten minutes, and the opener, Cries and Whispers, is nearly 20; the entire set was recorded live. Drake is not only the anchor here, but the inspiration, with his percussive encyclopedias of the history of African music rolled into brilliant, small statements that call McPhee to answer them from the new world on his saxophone and later on his trumpet. Cries and Whispers calls out of emptiness for context and creates willfully from a cultural center. And the manner in which it is done is auspicious: Intensity is not relied on to cover anything; the pace is gradual; ideas appear and are considered, articulated, and laid down as a platform for others to rise up and take their place. All the while, the various voices in this articulation debate one another as well as converse; they don't take anything for granted in the ethereal center of space that is created by the absence of other instruments. Mother Africa (For Miriam Makeba) is another example where Drake reflectively places a small, shimmering textural platform on the playing ground to be added to. McPhee, who is a consummate master at creating something from nothing, imbues his entire approach to Drake's offering with emotion rather than academic linguistics. As the piece builds, harmonic architectures of density and space are interwoven before being separated again as new and different structures where tonal coloration and dynamic force are merely elemental threads of creation rather than ends in themselves. This was a brilliant gig, and just how brilliant is evidenced by the energy and grace of this recording. ~ Thom Jurek, Rovi

1		Cries and Whispers
2		Mother Africa (For Miriam Makeba)
3		God Bless the Child
4		Emancipation Proclamation
5		Hate Crime Cries