For listeners drawn to the visceral intensity of rock and the expressive freedom of jazz, the combination of the two styles often produces a watered-down brew that does not do justice to either tradition. But for the master percussionist-composer Ronald Shannon Jackson, there are no clichés, no compromises. As a result, Red Warrior, Jackson's latest cross-cultural outing with producer Bill Laswell, is the most robust, forward-looking flight of electric energy since the early breakthroughs of Miles Davis and John McLaughlin.

With origins in the hard-blues country of Fort Worth, Texas, Jackson's drumming moves easily between backbeat and no beat, thanks in part to trailblazing stints with free-jazz shamans such as Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Cecil Taylor and James "Blood" Ulmer. All of Jackson's concepts came together in 1979, when he formed the Decoding Society, an adventurous electric-acoustic ensemble that nurtured gifted young talents like Living Colour's Vernon Reid, who first found flight on the wings of Jackson's propulsive polyrhythms and complex tonal contrasts.

At first Red Warrior sounds like a renegade power trio. The common threads throughout the album are the ceremonial thunder of African music, the dancing second line of New Orleans and the celebratory shout of Texas blues. Arrangements like those for "Gate to Heaven" and "What's Not Said" offer fresh insights into traditional shuffles and funky-butt grooves. But the turbulent group improvisations during the suite "Elders" take off where most rock songs end – several themes often jostle for attention – yet Jackson's Zep-like fanfares offer a tantalizing hook. And on "In Every Face," Jackson allows his massed electric strings to carry the crunching weight of a vamp, as his melodic drums surge through each crack in time, sweeping all before them in a giddy rush of motion and color.

Ultimately, Red Warrior's concern with freedom, energy and transformation marks it as a jazz album, but Jackson's obsession with electric guitars and body talk place it squarely in the realm of rock. To label Red Warrior fusion is to deny its impact. Perhaps we should simply call it heavy-metal jazz. (RS 605)

CHIP STERN