Roscoe Mitchell - Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3
ARTIST.....: Roscoe Mitchell
TITLE......: Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3
LABEL......: ECM
URL........: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roscoe_Mitchell
RIP DATE...: Jul-04-2007
STORE DATE.: Mar-26-2007
GENRE......: Jazz
QUALITY....: VBR / 44.1Hz / Joint-Stereo
SIZE.......: 98,7 MB
Track Listing:
01 - I 13:34
02 - II 04:07
03 - III 18:35
04 - IV 05:42
05 - V 03:54
06 - VI 03:17
07 - VII 09:13
08 - VIII 14:49
09 - IX 05:57
─────
79:08 min
Release Notes:
Review by Thom Jurek
One look at the lineup for this date on the back of the slipcase
is enough to raise the eyebrows of and create anticipation in any
avant jazz fan, given that some of these names and their
instruments are associated with so many fine recordings that it's
difficult to keep track of them all: Roscoe Mitchell playing
soprano saxophone exclusively; Evan Parker as his foil on tenor
and soprano; a rhythm section of drummers Tani Tabbal and Paul
Lytton; bassists Jaribu Shahid and Barry Guy; Craig Taborn on
piano; a string trio that includes Philipp Wachsmann, Nils
Bultmann, and Marcio Mattos; flutist Neil Metcalfe; Anders Svanoe
on alto and baritone saxophones; Corey Wilkes on trumpet and fl?
gelhorn; and John Rangecroft on clarinet. The players come from
both the United States and the U.K., and are comprised (mainly) of
members from Mitchell's Note Factory and Parker's Electro-Acoustic
Ensemble. Collectively they are known here as the Transatlantic
Art Ensemble. The connotation with Mitchell's legendary Art
Ensemble of Chicago is no mistake. Recorded live in 2004 in Munich
ù ECM's home base ù Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 is
divided into nine sections, and offered 25 years after the Art
Ensemble recorded here for ECM. The pieces begin quietly and
deliberately, feeling more like contemporary classical music;
space is at a premium as strings, piano, and the roll of a timpani
usher in the proceedings. There's no fire breathing here; it's all
of a piece, restrained yet relaxed, full of mystery and
deliberation yet wandering toward something over the
introduction's 13 and a half minutes. Abstraction begins in
earnest during the short second section when the drummers begin
improvising together in near counterpoint precision, but the feel
is more complementary.
The entire band enters in short ù slightly swinging, even ù melody
lines that get punctuated by brief silences and announcements of a
tension between themselves and the strings in the third section
where, eventually, the fire breathing does begin in earnest. It's
so wonderfully drawn out of each player and the ensemble moves as
one toward the ledge, the musicians inching each other on and
toward something far grander over its boundary. Tensions are
collected, parceled, and released as individual players engage one
another and Taborn grounds them all with his percussive chord
voicings in a section over 18 minutes in length. The shorter
interludes, of four and five minutes, serve to create new phases,
and while illustrating the same general direction, seduce the
listener into Mitchell's underground well of sound and inquiry.
The rest of this "scored" improvisational work follows suit. In
another pair of long sections ù "Movement VII" and "Movement
VIII," respectively ù instruments such as piano and violin,
baritone saxophone and double bass, or soprano and clarinet are
offered opportunities to engage one another in elongated lines and
sequences, giving the rest of the band definite points of entry in
the work. The final piece, at just under six minutes, begins
appropriately enough with strings, solo and in harmonically
assonant and dissonant dialogue. Taborn and Tabbal enter sparely
just before the entire work whispers toward mystery at its nadir.
And when it's done, it feels finished but somehow not truly ended,
as if there is an open space of indeterminate length to recall the
experience of what one has just heard and carve a place for it in
the space of each listener's chamber of sound and echo, endlessly
falling, a phrase, a note, and engagement at a time into silence.
http://www.amazon.com/Composition-Improvisation-Nos-Roscoe-
Mitchell/dp/B000MX7Y4K/ref=sr_1_1/104-2368090-5749532?
ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1183411870&sr=1-1