*** William Parker and the Little Huey Creative Music Orchestra

SUNRISE IN THE TONE WORLD

(Aum Fidelity)

If the Sun Ra Arkestra have a successor, then bassist Parker's big band is it. Like Ra, Parker gives the group a guiding mythology -- the story of a ghetto poet whose life, but not his spirit, was destroyed by poverty -- that provides the music with a social framework. Infused with the spirit of free jazz, the music itself is as powerful as the political/spiritual ideas that motivate it.

The energetic 22-member orchestra of Lower East Side denizens generate a startling number of ecstatically wailing solos, but thanks largely to Parker's compositions, the two-CD set is varied in mood and texture. The title track, a Ra-like processional built of interlocking vamps and countermelodies, inspires a plaintive solo from altoist Rob Brown. "Sun Ship for Dexter" offers attractive chord sequences, which the rhythm section maintains while saxophonist Ben Koen carves out his own freely improvised solo. "Little Huey Sees Light Through a Leaf," an exhausting 40-minute free improvisation, ebbs and flows through spontaneous ensembles and impromptu riffing, from which emerges the soaring lyricism of trumpeter Roy Campbell, the impassioned abstractions of tenor saxophonist Assif Tsahar, and several other soloists. This is a gloriously life-affirming band, balancing individual freedom with cooperative playing in some of the most riveting new music coming out of New York.

-- Ed Hazell