Michael Ullman
This cooperative music is deliberately international in instrumentation and personnel and theme, proffering its own characteristic, and often quite beautiful, mix of sounds.
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With their shifting textures and compositional variety, the relatively short pieces show the ways — in this case mostly gentle and lyrical — five musicians can fruitfully interact.
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Oscar Peterson always seemed at his best live, which is how we find the pianist in this beautifully recorded, newly issued set.
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To this listener, the quartet generates a drama of gradual enlightenment, as if extroversion signified some sort of illumination.
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“When you play with authority, then that’s what the music is about, like ooooh baby, and sing it.” — Cecil Taylor
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Soprano saxophonist Emile Parisien’s new disc is deliberately, and satisfyingly, international.
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The rewards of these and other recordings provide ample proof that, with its shape-shifting qualities, the string quartet will continue to be a powerful asset for talented jazz composers.
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Whether playing together or apart, on this 1981 recording the two saxophonists couldn’t sound more gracefully inspired or more compatible.
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The trio shares Cecil Taylor’s love of rational freedom and adventure, but it doesn’t try to reproduce the pianist’s rip-roaring intensity.
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As serious a musician as he is, and as virtuosic as he can be, the naturally extroverted Christian McBride knows how to entertain, a talent generously evident in this live performance.
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Arts Commentary: Rich in Creativity — But Nothing Else