Jazz Condition -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

New York's consistently best avant-garde jazz festival, the Vision Festival, just unveiled its 2002 program: 17 days of performances featuring avant-garde jazz music, dance, poetry, and visual arts presentations. All of it takes place from May 23 to June 8.

The ambitious lineup includes more than 300 avant-garde jazz artists from around the world who will perform in Manhattan's lower east side at The Center at Old St. Patrick's Cathedral, (268 Mulberry Street between Houston and Prince Streets) and at CBGB's Lounge.

In reaction to the crisis in prospects for world peace, the festival retained its theme from last year, "Vision Against Violence."

The first two weekends will focus on music presentations and spoken word, while the third weekend will focus on collaborations between the music, dance and visual arts. On June 1 and June 2, the festival will host an avant-garde jazz film series at Anthology Film Archives (32 Second Avenue).

The festival would be important if only for the presentation of the remarkable new work by the William Parker Quartet, "Raining On the Moon." Parker, the renowned bassist who founded the Vision festival seven years ago, has collaborated with Rob Brown on alto saxophone and flute, Louis Barnes on trumpet, Hamid Drake on drums and the mesmerizing vocalist Leena Conquest to come up with what is certain to become a touchstone recording with "Raining On the Moon."

Conquest's penetrating vocal performance, reminiscent of the work the late June Tyson did with the Sun Ra Arkestra, brings out the emotional nuances of "Song Of Hope," "Music Song," "James Baldwin To The Rescue" and the title track. Meanwhile the group plays beautifully behind her and on the instrumental tracks "Hunk Poppa Blues" and "Old Tears."

Parker's fingerprints, as usual, are all over the festival. He also will present a program by his ambitious project the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra and will accompany several groups on bass, most notably the David S. Ware quartet, a group which has been liked to the great John Coltrane quartet of the mid 1960s.

Recording for a number of small independent labels, saxophonist Ware, pianist Shipp and Parker came into their own as a unit during the 1990s, with drummer Guillermo Brown joining the group in 1999. Each member brings unique abilities as a conceptualist and leader to the mix.

Ware, a protégé of Sonny Rollins, has developed into one of the greatest post-Coltrane improvisers whose playing combines abstract freedom with gut emotion in a style at once technically challenging and emotionally accessible. Shipp is an unlikely combination of Cecil Taylor's virtuosic audacity and a thirst for deconstruction that led to him forging an alliance with the alternative rock label Thirsty Ear for his curatorial work with the Blue Series.

Shipp also will present a program by his String Trio, a group with Parker and violinist Mat Maneri.

Monday, May 27 will be dedicated as a memorial to the great trumpeter Don Cherry. The night's outstanding lineup will feature a performance by the Don Cherry Memorial Band -- Karl Berger, Peter Apfelbaum, Frank Lowe, Graham Haynes, Ingrid Sertso, Hasaan Hakmoun, Mark Helias and Bob Stewart. The program will also feature Parker with the Pyramid Trio, which also includes Roy Campbell and Hamid Drake; the Dewey Redman Quartet with Barney McAll, John Menegon and Matt Wilson; and Jayne Cortez' Firespitters with Bern Nix, Denardo Coleman, Jan Cherry, Al McDowell, Alex Harding, Talib Kibwe and Bobby Bradford.

Other highlights of the festival include:

* From California, Oluyemi and Ijeoma Thomas with expatriate Alan Silva -- saxophonist Joe McPhee in a quartet led by Joe Giardullo

* A rare performance from Jemeel Moondoc's Muntu

* A special Billy Bang Trio with Jin Hi Kim and Hamiet Bluiett

* French bassist Joelle Leandre in a duo with Hamid Drake

* Parker with Kidd Jordan, Fred Anderson and Hamid Drake

* Drummer Milford Graves with a special project assembled for the event

* A rare NY appearance of Paul Dunmall and Paul Rogers from England with Gerry Hemmingway

* Douglas Ewart fronting an all star lineup featuring Leo Wadada Smith --A special performance of David Gonzalez' Poetic License featuring Bobby Sanabria, John DiMartino, and Boris Kozlov

* Cooper-Moore's take on the Uncle Remus Tales

* Special appearance by the Sonny Simmons Quartet

* Drummer Sunny Murray with the eclectic Philly group Sonic Liberation Front

* Roy Campbell Jr's, "Buhaina the Great," a tribute to Art Blakey commissioned for the festival with funding from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Advance tickets for performances at The Center are available from Downtown Music Gallery, 211 East 5th Street, NYC 10003 Phone: 212-473-0043, fax: 212-533-5059, e-mail: [email protected] via the Internet.