Recorded in 1975 at the Köln Opera House and released the same year, this disc has, along with its revelatory music, some attendant cultural baggage that is unfair in one sense: Every pot-smoking and dazed and confused college kid -- and a few of the more sophisticated ones in high school -- owned this as one of the truly classic jazz records, ...
After several years off records, pianist Cecil Taylor finally had an opportunity to document his music of the mid-'60s on two Blue Note albums (the other one was Conquistador). Taylor's high-energy atonalism fit in well with the free jazz of the period but he was actually leading the way rather than being part of a movement. In fact, this septet ...
Beyond category or idiom, audacious in its very idea, Herbie Hancock and Wayne Shorter perform a little over an hour of spontaneous improvised duets for grand piano and soprano sax. That's all -- no synthesizers, no rhythm sections, just wistful, introspective, elevated musings between two erudite old friends that must have made the accountants at ...
He may call it "Zen Funk," but the real question is, what the hell is this? Swiss pianist and composer Nik Bartsch's Ronin have issued their ECM debut, Stoa, the label well-known for its icy sounding, spacious jazz. ECM has been pushing the envelope for nearly 40 years, but with Ronin, they've pushed it beyond the pale into God knows what. This is ...
On its fourth outing and its first for ECM, the Indian/Persian duo Ghazal chose to record a live album. Issued from a concert in Switzerland, the recording blends the musical styles of both countries. Shujaat Husain Khan, a direct descendant (grandson) of the venerable musician and spiritual master Ustad Vilayat Khan, plays sitar in the Imad Khan ...
With a title and cover artwork so obviously referring to the Beach Boys, one had to anticipate that this 2001 full-length CD by Fennesz would be more melodious than usual. It is, but you'll only get as close to surf music as the imagination of an experimental electronica artist from Vienna, Austria, will allow you to -- and that's still quite far. ...
This recording from 1966 is the very album that should have made Cecil Taylor the superstar of free jazz. Instead, despite the fact that it was received well by many critics and those interested in the new music, it was the last time he would record for seven years. Given the wondrous ensemble he assembled for this date -- Jimmy Lyons, alto; ...
The self-imposed quarantine on solo concerts over, Keith Jarrett returned to the improvisatory format that he virtually invented, mellower and more devotional than ever. Indeed, within the 38 minutes of solo improvisation captured at Paris's Salle Pleyel, Jarrett pulls further away from the old rousing (and thoroughly American) gospel, blues and ...
Speechless is proof in the pudding that you can teach an old dog new tricks. Old dog? Take a look at Bruce Cockburn's photo in the CD booklet. Speechless is the singer/songwriter's first foray into completely instrumental territory. There are 15 tracks here, the vast majority of which are redos of tracks from Cockburn's catalog. But given their ...
John Zorn's At the Mountains of Madness presents two sets (Moscow, Ljubljana) recorded at the end of a lengthy European tour. The band is exactly the same as on The 50th Birthday Celebration, Vol. 4 and many of the same tunes are performed, but the performances actually feel very different. Perhaps there was something of wanting to put on a good ...
On this 1961 quintet set for Prestige (with vibraphonist Al Francis, pianist Jaki Byard, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Charlie Persip), Don Ellis experiments with time, new chord structures, and free improvisation; a highlight is his brief unaccompanied workout on the free-form "Solo." Ellis, who switches to piano during part of "Tragedy," ...
Originally issued as a limited-edition LP, Hollinndagain is a live album recorded during American performances in 2001. Seven tracks and just over 40 minutes in length, it stands as one of the earliest recordings by Animal Collective. Their transcultural technological brand of post-postmodern tribalism is already in play here. Static opens the set ...
John Zorn's utter fascination with and envelopment in the mystical occult and outsider art of the 19th and 20th centuries continues on Astronome. Dedicated to the same three figures who informed Moonchild (also released in 2006): magician and philosopher Aleister Crowley, poet and dramatic Antonin Artaud, and composer Edgard Varèse. Drummer Joey ...
Roundabout features various ad hoc recordings made by guitarist Phil Keaggy before concerts and during his soundcheck. Referred to in the album liner notes as "soundcheck loops," these tracks are often free-flowing, atmospheric, and somewhat avant-garde cuts featuring Keaggy playing solo acoustic guitar through various effects pedals, including a ...
These are the recordings that made Keith Jarrett famous. Originally released as a three-LP set, the two solo piano recitals feature Jarrett freely improvising and never seeming to run out of ideas. A simple figure often develops through repetition and subtle variations into a rather complex sequence and eventually evolves into a new figure. One of ...
Annie Gosfield's outdone herself this time. The two compositions here, "EWA7" and the title piece, are related, first cousins, based in a sound world she discovered while traveling through the factories of Nuremberg trying to record enough sounds to create something that mirrored art and industry back to one another. A gargantuan piece over 42 ...
In volume four of the Charlie Haden concerts at the 1989 Montreal Festival, Montreal Tapes with Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Paul Motian returns as the drummer, but this time, the piano chair is occupied by the then-little-known Haden discovery, Cuban Gonzalo Rubalcaba, who proceeds to dazzle the audience with his mind-boggling speed. Rubalcaba's ...
In 2006, John Zorn issued two recordings that were the first two volumes in the realization of a project that, as he put it in his notes to the second volume, a methodology "combining the hypnotic intensity of ritual (composition) the spontaneity of magic (improvisation) in a modern musical format (rock)." Those two efforts, Moonchild and ...
La Bella Vista captures two impromptu performances from minimalist ambient guru Harold Budd. Playing solo on a vintage Steinway piano during two friendly gatherings, Budd created improvisational passages that danced across the air, not knowing that Adam Samuels and his friend Daniel Lanois were recording the sessions. At turns noirish and deeply ...
In John Surman's wildly diverse recorded catalog, two things remain constant: his dedication to finding the players he wants and getting the sonic atmosphere he needs to accomplish his musical ideas. There are few players and/or composers whose record is as consistent or as prolific as Surman's. John Zorn may be as diverse, but he's got a long way ...
Nels Cline, Andrea Parkins, and Tom Rainey can play anything from fiendishly complex charts to being consummate improvisers, and it's the latter end of that spectrum that's on display on the appropriately titled Out Trios, Vol. 3. The seven freely improvised tracks don't approach anything resembling a groove until the end of the disc, but clearly ...
"Godard" and "Spillane" were the two first (and purest) examples of the "file card" composition technique developed by John Zorn and inspired by theater director Richard Foreman. The compositions were constructed from independent scraps of music inscribed on file cards; the two principal works here called for assembly of the cards ("Spillane" used ...
The first striking thing about the Cracow Klezmer Band's reading of John Zorn's tunes from his Book of Angels, on Balan, is the sound -- crystalline, full of separation and space. The next is Jaroslaw Bester's bayan -- hunted, witchy, signaling from some far-off place to Oleg Dyyak's hand drums, Wojciech Front's double bass, and then the small ...
We guarantee every item's condition, as described on Alibris. If you are not satisfied that an item is as described, return your purchase for a refund.
![Endless Summer [Bonus Tracks]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/h97075cuku1_t.jpg)
![Conquistador [Bonus Track]](http://images.alibris.com/cover/k74428bm0s5_t.jpg)
Portions of content provided by All Music Guide or All Movie Guide. © 2009 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide and All Movie Guide are registered Trademarks of All Media Guide, LLC.