Angel Street (album)

All of the songs were written by Williams, who had spent the early 1980s working on his composition skills.^[4] He was backed by Billy Pierce on saxophone, Charnett Moffett on bass, Wallace Roney on trumpet, and Mulgrew Miller on piano.^[5][6] "Pee Wee" was recorded by Williams's former bandleader, Miles Davis.^[7] Williams thought that his compositional abilities were stronger on Angel Street, and that he possessed a better sense of melody.^[8] He preferred that the group record only two or three takes of a track.^[9] Williams used a personalized drum machine to help him construct the songs; he included short drum solos between the tracks.^[10][11]

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Review scores
Source	Rating
MusicHound Jazz: The Essential Album Guide	[12]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD, LP & Cassette	[13]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[14]
The Windsor Star	A−[15]

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The St. Petersburg Times concluded that "Williams is unquestionably an expert and innovative drummer, but his composing skills—a recent concentration—are shaky... Most of the tunes ... are fuzzy and obtuse."^[16] The New York Times noted that "the music is easygoing, even at fast tempos; Mr. Williams knocks the tunes around with carefree mastery, but too often he allows his soloists ... to reel off the steady strings of 16th-notes and arpeggios that are hard-bop's common currency."^[5] The Los Angeles Times said that "the music, composed by Williams, is powered by his crisp stick work: rapidly shifting layers of rhythms coming from carefully tuned drums that almost give his playing a melodic quality."^[17]

The Windsor Star stated that the "group kicks and swings healthily ... on uptempo outings like 'Obsession' and 'Red Mask'".^[15] The Globe and Mail opined that "the ballads sound like most quintet's ballads—his musicians play them in a way that falls halfway between the dutiful and the inspired—but the heavy slugging, with Moffett as bullish as his leader, could only be the work of Tony Williams."^[6] The Times praised Williams's "breathtakingly sophisticated rhythmic and textural detail".^[18]