***1/2 David S. Ware Quartet

WISDOM OF UNCERTAINTY

(Aum Fidelity)

The hits keep on coming for what is undoubtedly the most venerable free-jazz combo of the '90s. Here Susie Ibarra replaces longstanding Ware drummer Whit Dickey, but otherwise the formula is the same for this piledriving quartet (tenorsaurus Ware along with Ibarra, bassist William Parker, and pianist Matthew Shipp): composition based in improv but still grounded in basic bluesy melodies. Players like Albert Ayler and Archie Shepp (as opposed to, say, Roscoe Mitchell) are the reference points -- "Acclimation," for example, sounds like a distant cousin to Ayler's "Bells."

The music moves in clarion bursts of pure rage and unsullied joy. In the squawking breakdown of "Utopic," Ware testifies like a man who's been holding onto a secret for too long. "Antidromic" features several solid minutes of Ware blowing like a freight train before allowing Shipp to stretch out his fingers on some typically erudite licks. And "Alignment" is the kind of passionate soul baring that brings to mind Coltrane's "The Father, Son and Holy Ghost." Ditto for "Sunbows Rainsets Blue." Ware just keeps unwinding and unwinding.

-- Joe S. Harrington