Recorded live in Berlin at the Total Music Meeting in early November 1996, and released by FMP in 2005, the nearly 77-minute performance ritual Almeda easily stands among Cecil Taylor's finest large ensemble realizations, including Unit Structures (1966), Winged Serpent/Sliding Quadrants (1986), and The Owner of the River Bank, a collaboration with the Italian Instabile Orchestra which occurred in 2004. Almeda's forces are expansive and colorfully unfurled. Here the pianist, poet, and composer was anchored by his regular working unit of bassist Dominic Duval and drummer Jackson Krall, with guest cellist Tristan Honsinger.
Double bassist Joshua Abrams provides the compositions for this studio album performed with Ari Brown on tenor sax, Jeff Parker on guitar and Gerald Cleaver on drums, an exceptional quartet of master improvisers who balance lyrical and soulful playing with explorative impulse, fueled by an empathetic responsiveness that only a long history of collaboration can engender.
Recorded in 1993 during the Free Music Workshop in Berlin, this date features Cecil Taylor playing in a septet setting with a group of musicians who both point back toward some of the Cecil Taylor units of old and look ahead at the possibilities for a future ensemble employing numerous instruments, not only for color and variance, but also as force creators in Taylor's wave field. Old Taylor stalwarts like bassist Sirone and drummer Rashid Baker are tossed into a mix that includes tenor titan Charles Gayle, cellist Tristan Honsiger, and soprano saxophonist Harri Sjöström, as well as French trumpet master Longineu Parsons.
Recorded a couple of days after the similarly titled solo piano performance also released on FMP, Looking (Berlin Version) Corona is a fine quintet concert, notable for the relatively unusual (for Taylor) instrumental grouping employed. In addition to longtime associates Tony Oxley and William Parker, he added a violinist and a cellist (Harold Kimmig and Muneer Abdul Fatah, respectively), forming with Parker a kind of string trio plunked down between the two massive musical forces of nature playing piano and drums. This hornless ensemble creates a very attractive openness of sound, leaving the players a large amount of apparent sonic space in which to improvise freely. Kimmig takes advantage of this early on with some inspired soloing, bringing to mind another violinist briefly affiliated with Taylor, Leroy Jenkins.
Released a year after 23 Standards (Quartet) 2003, this second four-disc set doubles the amount of material released from Braxton's tours of Europe in early and late 2003, with the same lineup (Braxton on saxes, Kevin O'Neil on guitar, bassist Andy Eulau, and drummer Kevin Norton), same focus on jazz standards, and even the same dates in some cases. Together, the two four-CD sets released by Leo Records present recordings from ten different European dates (two in February 2003 and eight in November of that year). This second set continues with the editorial approach used in the first one: each disc consists of tracks from different concerts, brought together to make a balanced record.
On Friday, April 16, 2021, trumpeter and composer Nate Wooley will release Mutual Aid Music, a double-CD of eight ensemble concertos, on Pleasure of the Text Records. Wooley's concertos are performed by an all-star group composed of saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock, violinist Joshua Modney, cellist Mariel Roberts, pianists Sylvie Courvoisier and Cory Smythe, percussionists Matt Moran and Russell Greenberg, and Wooley himself on trumpet. Mutual aid points to the concept of community action and the human drive to provide succor to our fellow humans.
For many years Evan Parker, one of the greatest post-Coltrane saxophonists, has played a monthly gig at the London club The Vortex. These gigs in part illustrate Evan’s close ties with the fragile ecosystem of clubs that support the jazz world; the small venues that allow an intimate and powerful connection between the artist and audience that is at the heart of jazz creativity. Evan called these events his ‘jazz’ gigs, the knowing hyphenation an indication of the problematic use of the J word, an acceptance of the Vortex as a ‘jazz’ club, and a nod to his origins in jazz history. I took a friend there one time and it seemed to me that the trio’s performance (Evan, John Edwards and the great and sadly departed Tony Marsh) came close to seeing Coltrane or Ayler playing at the 5 Spot or one of the other legendary New York venues.
Various configurations of four jazz titans recorded live one evening during Cafe Oto’s early years.
The diminutive but mighty acoustic bassist Malachi Favors was a charter member of the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Kahil El'Zabar's Ritual Trio, and since his passing both groups have suffered. This recording for El'Zabar and his revamped trio including longtime member saxophonist Ari Brown and guest violinist Billy Bang is the first offering with bassist Yosef Ben Israel filling the chair of the late Favors…
![Lol Coxhill / Joe McPhee / Chris Corsano / Evan Parker - Tree Dancing (2019) [Re-up]](https://pixhost.icu/avaxhome/f4/b9/006bb9f4_medium.jpg)
