Showing posts with label Craig Taborn. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Craig Taborn. Show all posts

Friday, January 14, 2022

OUT TODAY: Single from “Interpret It Well” / Ches Smith with Frisell, Maneri and Taborn (Pyroclastic Records)

Drummer/vibraphonist/composer Ches Smith leads a breathtaking all-star quartet with guitarist Bill Frisell, violist Mat Maneri and pianist Craig Taborn

Interpret It Well, due out May 6, 2022 via Pyroclastic Records, features stunning explorations of Smith’s ethereal compositions

“A smartly unruly drummer active in devious art-rock and outsider jazz."
– Nate Chinen, New York Times

"[The] nondescript term ‘drummer’ doesn’t get near the chemistry of earworm hooks, sharp-end jazz innovation and global-musical openness of New York percussionist/composer Ches Smith."
– John Fordham, The Guardian

Album Preview Concerts March 30 & 31 at The Stone at the New School, NYC

Interpret it well,” reads the script text in Raymond Pettibon’s mysteriously evocative drawing. A few thick black ink strokes describe an enigmatic landscape – the telephone poles, the railroad track and the building in the distance seem obvious enough as markers of desolation, but the swirl of lines on the horizon are more ambiguous. The steam from an approaching train? An oncoming tornado? Hope or dread, connection or destruction, all depend on interpretation.
 
It’s a fitting choice of cover art for drummer/vibraphonist/composer Ches Smith, whose entrancing new album Interpret It Well borrows Pettibon’s three-word prompt as both title and instruction, for bandmates and listeners alike. The album, due out May 6, 2022 from Pyroclastic Records, is his second with keyboardist Craig Taborn and violist Mat Maneri, the much-anticipated follow-up to the trio’s acclaimed 2016 ECM release The Bell. This time out the band becomes a quartet with the addition of master guitarist Bill Frisell, whose contributions bring additional depth, space and texture to a group already rich in all three qualities.
 
It was that sense of openness and exploration, in fact, which intrigued Frisell in the first place. The guitarist attended a Ches Smith Trio concert in late 2018, following which he contacted the drummer with questions about the compositions. “Bill was very nice about the gig – effusive, actually,” Smith recalls. “He told me that he felt the tunes were accessible but challenging at the same time. There's something about the way Craig and Mat and I play together, where we extrapolate to the max but the music feels like the pieces. So I thought Bill might be interested in playing them with us.”
 
It took more than a year for schedules to align, but Frisell was finally able to join the trio for a performance in early 2020. The combination gelled immediately – “Bill felt like a natural part of the band,” Smith writes in his liner notes – but the demands on everyone’s time meant that a recording with all four would prove next to impossible to book.
 
Everyone knows what comes next – the pandemic happened, and suddenly time was all anyone had. Smith reworked his compositions with the newly forged quartet in mind, and the band went into the studio that October when life began to resume some semblance of normalcy (for the first time, at least).
© Kesler Pierre

The results are absolutely striking. As he did for the trio incarnation on The Bell, Smith writes compositions that are minimal but indelible; skeletal enough to allow these remarkable improvisers space to roam far afield yet so vivid that the core image is never lost amidst the daring embellishments.
 
Which brings us back to the Pettibon drawing – what Smith’s music shares with the artist’s work is that idea of a distinctive landscape evoked with a few sketchy lines, with vast stretches of the mysterious left in the spaces between. “There are definitely maximal moments on this record,” Smith says. “But when I think of the music in my head, it's fairly minimal. I like a lot of music where nothing seems to be happening.”
 
That may be true of the music on Interpret It Well in broad terms, but listen closely and a great deal is happening just beneath the misleadingly placid surface. The album is bookended by “Trapped” and “Deppart” (“Trapped” spelled backwards), two alternate versions of the same brief piece, a haunting, repetitive melody that slowly accrues power one voice at a time. “That’s one of the most minimal things I've ever written,” Smith says. “It's simultaneously a bar, a melody and a chord, and people can approach it however they want.”
 
The title track begins with Smith’s tentative, querying vibraphone, with the other voices gradually gathering around him like a deepening fog. The picture eventually comes into focus only to give way to Taborn’s stuttering, agitated solo, which ushers in the urgent, ferocious final section. The piece has been inspiring to artists outside of the band as well – artist/filmmaker Frank Heath, whose works have been described as “poetic interventions into systems of communication, information and understanding,” has created a new film to accompany “Interpret It Well.” The piece will be available May 6 via the Ches Smith and Pyroclastic websites.
 
Frisell contributes a high lonesome intro to “Mixed Metaphor,” soon matched by Maneri’s forlorn bowing. Smith (on vibes) and Taborn then take over for a labyrinthine duet, ultimately leading into a spiraling vamp. The sparse “Morbid” is a ballad of sorts, an elegy unfurling at an achingly slow pace, luxuriating in the evanescent sound while all four take care not to shatter the exquisitely delicate atmosphere. “Clear Major” takes on a more forceful tone, beginning with Taborn’s insistent patterns. The piece is a three-part suite, the volleying first section followed by the lurching rhythms of the middle and the intricately woven lines of the final – each movement separated by clamorous improvisations that deconstruct the composition in order to rebuild again. The complex “I Need More” proceeds at a brisk pace rife with tension, finally exploding into Frisell’s razor-sharp, searing solo. 
 
Interpretation is central to Ches Smith’s compositional approach, and here it yields absolutely breathtaking results. “Bill, Mat and Craig can all turn the ensemble in a new direction on a dime by playing one phrase,” Smith says. “What I love about this band is the way that over time, they'll all change their parts – Craig adding harmony or Mat embellishing the written material to keep it fresh. I’ve played with the two of them a lot over the years, but the music turns out different every time. And I know Bill’s playing very well, but he constantly surprised me. Interpret It Well is really my way of encouraging them – it could be the unspoken credo of the band.”

1. TRAPPED 2:27
2. INTERPRET IT WELL 13:39
3. MIXED METAPHOR 16:26
4. MORBID 7:20
5. CLEAR MAJOR 15:29
6. I NEED MORE 11:42
7. DEPPART 2:36

Ches Smith, drums, vibes
Craig Taborn, piano
Mat Maneri, viola
Bill Frisell, guitar

Ches Smith – Interpret It Well
Pyroclastic Records – PR 19 – Recorded October 12-13, 2020
Release date May 6, 2022

Friday, October 8, 2021

Craig Taborn | Shadow Plays | Available October 8 via ECM

Pianist and Composer Craig
Taborn Returns After a Ten Year Hiatus
with His Release Shadow Plays


Ten years have passed since Craig Taborn’s Avenging Angel album was released, bringing strikingly fresh ideas to the solo piano idiom. “It reflects Mr Taborn’s galactically-broad interests,” said the New York Times, “along with his multifaceted technique,” while the Guardian saluted Craig’s “world of whispered, wide-spaced figures, ringing overtones, evaporating echoes and glowering contrapuntal cascades”.
 
In the interim Taborn has appeared in ECM contexts large and small. We’ve heard him in his trio with Thomas Morgan and Gerald Cleaver on Chants and in his Daylight Ghosts quartet with Chris Speed, Chris Lightcap and Dave King. He’s played piano duets with Vijay Iyer on The Transitory Poems, performed Ches Smith’s music on The Bell, contributed to Roscoe Mitchell’s AACM tribute Bells for the South Side, and to Chris Potter’s music for ensemble and strings on Imaginary Cities. Alongside all of these activities, the solo music has continued to gather strength.
 
Over the last decade Taborn has refined and developed his approach, attaining new high ground with Shadow Plays. For Craig the recording is “part of the same continuum as Avenging Angel. Where that was a studio recording, this one is live, but that process of spontaneous composition goes onward.” The new album is a stunning live recital from the Mozart-Saal of the Wiener Konzerthaus, where the programme was headlined Avenging Angel II. In this fully improvised concert, Craig explores sounds and silences, swirling colours, densities and forms, creating new music with both poetic imagination and an iron grip on his material. His control of his craft as he unerringly creates narratives and structures from the hint of a revealed pattern, following where intuition and experience lead him, is extraordinary.
 
“When you improvise,” Taborn told writer Adam Shatz, in a New York Times interview, “you’re observing and creating at the same time. To make the next move, you have to get really close to what’s going on.”
 
“Free improvisation” can mean many things. For Taborn, in this context, this is not a matter of automatic writing or stream-of-consciousness self-expression but of keeping in focus both the larger frame of the concert and the concise statements shaped from the moment-to-moment detail of the music. “A lot of my interests revolve around trying to extend the boundaries you can create in…” Craig Taborn has noted. “Rather than simply free-flowing as I travel from Point A to Point B, I am really trying to construct and to organize the material as it emerges, in real time. And what is created in this way feels different to music using pre-composed elements.”
 
Taborn is a great improviser in any context, and highly regarded for his capacity to get to the heart of the music, whatever the setting. In the solo work connections to ‘jazz’ are not always self-evident, but in the flux of the piece retrospectively called “Conspiracy of Things”, allusions to the history of the music from stride piano onwards seems to flash past at lightning speed. In all pieces, ideas are explored, at multiple levels. Emotions too – tenderness and fierceness co-exist in pieces thoughtfully titled “Discordia Concors” and “Concordia Discors,” concepts that reflect the notion of unity through diversity. “I name the pieces,” Taborn said in a recent interview with Bomb magazine, “after they are finished and in consideration of their programmatic position – in a way the titling is the final stage of composition. And I intend the titles as invitations to extend the musical experience into other areas.” The inclusiveness of his work – subtly informed by music and art of many traditions – invites new associations and open responses.
Born in Detroit in 1970, Craig Taborn studied at the University of Michigan. He first came to wider attention in the groups of saxophonist James Carter. His first ECM appearance was with Roscoe Mitchell’s Note Factory on the album Nine To Get Ready (recorded 1997).
 
Currently on the road in Europe with cellist Tomeka Reid and drummer Ches Smith, Craig Taborn undertakes a solo piano tour in February 2022 with dates including Tampere, Finland (February 1), Live Lab, Helsinki (February 2), Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria, Oslo (February 3), Musikförening, Vanersborg, Sweden (February 4), Halmstad, Sweden (February 5), Fasching, Stockholm (February 6), Sendesaal, Bremen (February 7), Domicil, Dortmund (February 10), Birdland, Neuburg (February 11), Son d’hiver Festival, Paris (February 12) and Bimhuis, Amsterdam (February 13). More details at www.ecmrecords.com
 
Craig Taborn’s Shadow Plays, produced by Manfred Eicher, was recorded live at the Wiener Konzerthaus on March 2, 2020.

1 BIRD TEMPLARS (Craig Taborn) 17:02
2 DISCORDIA CONCORS (Craig Taborn) 08:57
3 CONSPIRACY OF THINGS (Craig Taborn) 05:50
4 CONCORDIA DISCORS (Craig Taborn) 11:59
5 A CODE WITH SPELLS (Craig Taborn) 08:09
6 SHADOW PLAY (Craig Taborn) 18:37
7 NOW IN HOPE (Craig Taborn) 05:47

Craig Taborn Piano


CONCERTS
November 07 Craig Taborn Plages Magnétiques Brest France
November 11 Craig Taborn EnjoyJazz Festival, dasHaus Ludwigshafen Germany
November 12 Craig Taborn Jazz d'Or Strasbourg France
November 13 Craig Taborn Flagey Brussels Belgium
November 15 Craig Taborn De Singer Rejkevorsel Belgium
November 16 Craig Taborn Institut Francais Berlin Germany
February 03 Craig Taborn Nasjonal Jazzscene Victoria Oslo Norway
February 04 Craig Taborn Vänersborgs Musikförening Vänersborg Sweden
February 05 Craig Taborn Halmstad Sweden
February 06 Craig Taborn Fasching Stockholm Sweden
February 07 Craig Taborn Sendesaal Bremen Germany
February 10 Craig Taborn Domicil Dortmund Germany
February 11 Craig Taborn Birdland Neuburg Germany
February 12 Craig Taborn Son d Hiver Paris France
February 13 Craig Taborn Bimhuis Amsterdam Netherlands
April 22 Craig Taborn Kaleidophon Ulrichberg Austria

Monday, September 27, 2021

Ivo Perelman - Brass & Ivory Tales (Fundacja Słuchaj)

Great saxophonist, improviser Ivo Perelman celebrates its 60th birthday this year. Brass & Ivory tales - 9 CDs box-set is a gift for this phenomenal musician, great human being, and marvelous artist. Nine studio sessions with nine top and most creative pianists like Dave Burrell, Marilyn Crispell, Aruan Ortiz, Sylvie Courvoisier, Angelica Sanchez, Aaron Parks, Agusti Fernandez, Craig Taborn, and Vijay Iyer in a beautiful box with liner notes from Grammy Award Winner writer Neil Tesser

IVO PERELMAN - BRASS & IVORY TALES

CD 1: Tale One with Dave Burrell
CD 2: Tale Two with Marilyn Crispell
CD 3: Tale Three with Aruán Ortiz
CD 4: Tale Four with Aaron Parks
CD 5: Tale Five with Sylvie Courvoisier
CD 6: Tale Six with Agustí Fernández
CD 7: Tale Seven with Craig Taborn
CD 8: Tale Eight with Angelica Sanchez
CD 9: Tale Nine with Vijay Iyer

CD1: Tale One - Ivo Perelman with Dave Burrell

01. Chapter One 37.09
02. Chapter Two 20.02
Total Time: 57.11

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Dave Burell – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Dave Burrell Lanikai Sounds Publ. Company (BMI)
Recorded January 2020

CD2: Tale Two – Ivo Perelman with Marilyn Crispell

1. Chapter One 6.56
2. Chapter Two 5.12
3. Chapter Three 7.46
4. Chapter Four 2.55
5. Chapter Five 5.23
6. Chapter Six 3.23
7. Chapter Seven 6.35
8. Chapter Eight 7.41
9. Chapter Nine 6.51
Total Time: 52.42

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Marilyn Crispell – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Marilyn Crispell Crispell Publishing/BMI
Recorded March 2014

CD3: Tale Three – Ivo Perelman with Aruán Ortiz

1. Chapter One 9.25
2. Chapter Two 3.21
3. Chapter Three 4.02
4. Chapter Four 11.01
5. Chapter Five 10.36
6. Chapter Six 10.15
7. Chapter Seven 7.02
Total Time: 55.40

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Aruán Ortiz – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Aruan Ortiz Naurazitro Music/SESAC
Recorded December 2017

CD4: Tale Four – Ivo Perelman with Aaron Parks

1. Chapter One 19.14
2. Chapter Two 10.16
3. Chapter Three 10.12
Total Time: 39.42

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Aaron Parks – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Aaron Parks Invisible Cinema Music (BMI)
Recorded March 2020

CD5 Tale Five – Ivo Pereleman with Sylvie Courvoisier

1. Chapter One 3.32
2. Chapter Two 3.04
3. Chapter Three 5.04
4. Chapter Four 5.45
5. Chapter Five 4.33
6. Chapter Six 5.28
7. Chapter Seven 5.29
8. Chapter Eight 7.41
9. Chapter Nive 2.39
10. Chapter Ten 5.17
11. Chapter Eleven 5.55
Total Time: 54.26

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Sylvie Courvoisier – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Sylvie Courvoisier Sylvie COURVOISIER MUSIC ASCAP 560146375
Recorded March 2018

CD6 Tale Six – Ivo Perelman with Agustí Fernández

1. Chapter One 8.45
2. Chapter Two 6.11
3. Chapter Three 8.28
4. Chapter Four 4.02
5. Chapter Five 5.28
6. Chapter Six 7.21
7. Chapter Seven 6.23
8. Chapter Eight 2.11
9. Chapter Nine 5.02
Total Time: 54.10

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Agustí Fernández– piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Agustí Fernández SGAE (Sociedad General de Autores de España)
Recorded July 2017

CD7 Tale Seven – Ivo Perelman with Craig Taborn

1. Chapter One 26.20
2. Chapter Two 4.40
3. Chapter Three 5.22
4. Chapter Four 19.52
5. Chapter Five 8.37
Total Time: 65.01

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Craig Taborn – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Craig Taborn LightMadeLighter Publishing BMI
Recorded June 2021

CD8 Tale Eight – Ivo Perelman with Angelica Sanchez

1. Chapter One 3.35
2. Chapter Two 3.04
3. Chapter Three 5.47
4. Chapter Four 7.40
5. Chapter Five 8.18
6. Chapter Six 8.33
7. Chapter Seven 6.38
8. Chapter Eight 7.45
9. Chapter Nine 9.51
Total Time: 61.29

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Angelica Sanchez – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Angelica Sanchez Sancha Music/ Sesac
Recorded June 2021

CD9 Tale Nine – Ivo Perelman with Vijay Iyer

1. Chapter One 17.10
2. Chapter Two 3.36
3. Chapter Three 25.27
4. Chapter Four 14.26
5. Chapter Five 2.28
Total Time: 63.16

Ivo Perelman – tenor saxophone
Vijay Iyer – piano
Ivo Perelman ivomusic/ ASCAP, Vijay Iyer Sonocentric Publishing (ASCAP) administered by Kobalt Music
Recorded May 2021

Friday, September 17, 2021

Craig Taborn Launches 60 x Sixty

ANNOUNCING WORLDWIDE & FREE AVAILABILITY OF CRAIG TABORN’S NEW CONCEPTUAL WORK 

Sixty pieces of music in sixty minutes each about sixty seconds in length.

Pressing PLAY initiates a run of 60 tracks in a randomized order. The sequence ends after all 60 pieces play. The numbers relate to the ordinal position of each piece in the present playlist and are not intended titles or identifiers of the musical works. Every subsequent play shuffles the deck. In time new pieces may be added as others are removed.

This series is created with a diversity of musical processes and aesthetic parameters. The pieces relate to one another only in seeking to explore how malleable the perception of a 60-second span of time might be when subject to different sound worlds in succession. Do some pieces feel longer than others? What elements contribute to this subjective experience? How does time pass or not pass?

Press PLAY to begin the ride. It’s a singular journey each time.

— Craig Taborn
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, Craig Taborn has been performing piano and electronic music in the jazz, improvisational, and creative music scene for over twenty-five years. He has experience composing for and performing in a wide variety of situations including jazz, new music, electronic, rock, noise and avant garde contexts.

Taborn has played and recorded with many luminaries in the fields of jazz, improvised, new music and electronic music including Roscoe Mitchell, Wadada Leo Smith, Lester Bowie, Dave Holland, Tim Berne, John Zorn, Evan Parker, Steve Coleman, David Torn, Chris Potter, William Parker, Vijay Iyer, Kris Davis, Nicole Mitchell, Susie Ibarra, Ikue Mori, Carl Craig, Dave Douglas, Meat Beat Manifesto, Dan Weiss, Chris Lightcap, Gerald Cleaver, and Rudresh Manhathappa.

Taborn is currently occupied creating and performing music for solo piano performance (Avenging Angel), piano trio (Craig Taborn Trio), an electronic project (Junk Magic), the Daylight Ghosts Quartet, a piano/drums/electronics duo with Dave King (Heroic Enthusiasts) and a new trio with Tomeka Reid and Ches Smith as well as piano duo collaborations with Vijay Iyer (The Transient Poems), Kris Davis (Octopus) and Cory Smythe. He is also a member of the instrumental electronic art-pop group Golden Valley is Now and performs frequently on solo electronics.

Taborn lives in Brooklyn.

60 x Sixty Available at 60xsixty.com

Friday, April 23, 2021

Hardcell (Berne / Taborn / Rainey) - Sensitive (April 2021 Screwgun Records)

This is a live recording of the first hardcell gig.
RAW
Found it in a box of cdr’s mislabeled as “Almost Quicksand”.
This was the first time playing w/Craig as well...I remember feeling euphoric that night ....kind of like a new chapter of insanity was about to start.
I Think i may have been right.
Mastered by TORN.

1. Heavy Mental 07:30
2. Twisted 10:24
3. The Opener 12:10
4. Thin Ice 39:02

Craig Taborn keyboards
Tim Berne alto sax
Tom Rainey drums

Music Tim Berne party music BMI

Mastered by David Torn
Recorded 12/3/2000
By Daniel Goldaracena

Thursday, February 18, 2021

Junk Magic – Compass Confusion (Pyroclastic Records)

Junk Magic – 2004 record title, and current pseudonym for Craig Taborn –
explores sonic subversion and mingling identities on anticipated follow-up
Compass Confusion

“Collages of dark and dirty parts, musical cast-offs, so to speak, that have been artfully
reattached.” — Patrick Sisson, PopMatters
“More rewards await, rich and replete.” — Phil DiPietro, All About Jazz
For more than a decade, Junk Magic has been honing a collective sound that relies on individual expressions, imagination and subversion. Appearing first as a 2004 album title under pianist-composer Craig Taborn’s name, Junk Magic has transitioned into a sonic identity comprising electronic sound design, production techniques and elements of improvised music.

Compass Confusion presents a holographic snapshot of the Junk Magic sound. “Everything is warped by something else,” says Taborn, who serves as album composer and producer. “You’re still trying to capture things ‘in a moment,’ in a certain sense. But then also, because of how the process works, you’re not. There’s a lot of time to craft things after the fact.”

Compass Confusion features Chris Speed on saxophone, Erik Fratzke on bass, Mat Maneri on viola, David King on drums and Taborn on piano, keyboards and synthesizer. Together, they disarticulate boundaries that imply separation of live music and digital production. “I don’t really view using creative methods in ambient techniques as a ‘different side’ of musical expression,” says Taborn. “It’s all the same expression. But this album is definitely leaning in to the production process as opposed to relying more heavily on the live playing.”

Compositional and textural layers, as well as pacing and extended ebb and flow, emerge intentionally throughout the recording. The artists honor space. They harness movement through time. Using methods that challenge perception and embrace subversion, they develop sound narratives unique to each track that create a story arc across the entire album. The interplay’s the thing. “Laser Beaming Hearts” introduces a cast of characters, layering and mingling their identities, not only through sound design but melody.

“Whenever I hear a melody, it really does set up an identity, a character,” says Taborn, who seeks, at times, to subvert a character’s initial impact by elevating a textural element or an ambience. Often, that relationship inverts. First conjuring an ocean inside a seashell alongside echoing heartbeats, “Dream and Guess” soon moves into a new melody beautiful, mysterious and primed for sonic disruption.
Rather than disorient — despite its title — the album constantly reorients the listener. Many tracks, including “The Science of Why Devils Smell Like Sulfur,” feature sound chambers, through which the artists freely move. Within these chambers, textures layer, flicker, persist, and stories develop; sound collage may enhance as melody recedes. “There are different methods of attending compositionally,” says Taborn. “If I were writing a traditional tune, it would be melody and some chord changes; if I were writing a hip hop track, I would focus more on beats, loops and sound design; if I were writing strictly ambient music, I would focus on the sound relationships, how the shapes are evolving with certain sonic elements. On a lot of these pieces, I’m really playing with the foreground and background of all those things.”

While Taborn’s process serves a fixed vision, his approach preserves spontaneity. He populates each chamber by listening and responding to what he hears. “Each tune kind of has a radically different process,” he says. “I do think about narrative, because it moves through time, but it’s the narrative of these sound worlds, moving between them.”

The artists entered sessions in Minneapolis and Brooklyn knowing each studio hit would be one step of the process. Most of the album’s construction would come together away from mics and amps. Still, Taborn asserts an aesthetic throughout Compass Confusion that reflects his expansive foundation in live, improvised music. Deep admiration for hip hop and EDM production techniques notwithstanding, Taborn seeks to preserve solo performances artists throw down in the studio. “To a large extent, what you hear is what people played in the order that they played it,” he says. “I don’t cut up performances. And that’s not an ethos, it’s just an aesthetic. I’m not cutting up a drum solo and making loops, but I’m doing other things that might trick you into thinking it’s looped.”

Mixed and mastered in Taborn’s native Minneapolis by Brett Bullion (The Bad Plus) and Huntley Miller (Bon Iver, Kassa Overall), respectively, Compass Confusion presents a confluence of expressions within a collective sound. “We’re improvisers,” says Taborn. “While a lot of this material is written, there’s so much improvising in the playing. Even in my approach to making tracks, making beats in the studio, it’s still improvisational. You’re working on things in the moment.”

***

Junk Magic, over the years, has featured countless acclaimed artist-composers, including Craig Taborn, Chris Speed, Erik Fratzke, Mat Maneri, Aaron Stewart, Mark Turner and David King (The Bad Plus). Bonding improvisational aesthetic with digital production and electronic music techniques, the project ethos challenges existing perceptions of sound design. A 2004 self-titled release garnered praise from Pitchfork, PopMatters and All About Jazz, which acknowledged the sound’s “staggering futuristic potential.” Anticipated followup Compass Confusion, released on Pyroclastic Records, positions Junk Magic on the rolling crest of acoustic wave expansion.

1. Laser Beaming Hearts 07:10
2. Dream and Guess 05:37
3. Compass Confusion/ Little Love Gods 08:55
4. The Science Of Why Devils Smell Like Sulfur 10:37
5. The Night Land 04:10
6. Sargasso 08:35
7. Sunsets Forever 05:31

Chris Speed - tenor sax, clarinet
Mat Maneri - viola
Erik Fratzke - bass
David King - acoustic and electronic drums

Wednesday, February 17, 2021

Diego Barber - Drago (February 19, 2021 Sunnyside Records)

There is only one way to enhance one’s performance and that is to practice until there is a level of confidence in act, and pride in the outcomes. Guitarist and composer Diego Barber seeks new challenges relentlessly. His pursuit of excellence in all his endeavors has led him to the extreme heights of classical guitar technique, contemporary composition and long-distance running, all of these requiring grueling regimens of focused study.

For his new recording, Drago, Barber departs from his recent focus on blending contemporary classical music and jazz to focus on electronic music, utilizing elements from both the classical and dancefloor models. A two-year long study of Logic music programming has led the fleet fingered string specialist to eschew the guitar for the most part to focus on composing pieces in a new and highly personal way.

Barber was attracted to the guitar very early in life and, once he set his sights on the instrument, he began to focus solely on mastering it. Classical repertoire from Bach to Brouwer continues to be an essential touchstone for Barber but he was also touched by the minimalists, like Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Their repetitive looping structures appealed to Barber and he began to hear the connects between that and the development of Detroit Techno and the Electronic Dance Music coming from Berlin. Barber’s interest and infatuation with electronic music has been nearly as longstanding as that of his love for guitar.

There are quite a few classical and jazz artists that have delved into the world of electronic music. Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Tristan Perich, Francesco Tristano and Craig Taborn are just a few that have found intriguing ways to adapt their style to that of electronic music, both popular and experimental.

Like the widespread roots of the famed one-thousand-year-old Drago tree of his native Canary Islands, Barber spans decades to inform the compositional development of this music. Each piece comes from a different place, whether done in sonata form, built by loops or by musical cells. Many of the pieces were inspired by a sound that Barber heard or a rhythm that he generated while on one of his many long-distance races, thus many of the pieces are named for locations of these 50 to 100-mile ultra-marathons that Barber took part in.

The program begins with the title track, a piece that is inspired directly from the Steve Reich grooving, loop-based version of classical minimalism and utilizes guest vocalist Theo Bleckmann’s beautiful stacked vocals and Barber’s own amplifying electric guitar. The mysterious “Leadville” refers to the chilly Colorado mountain town and shows the most obvious parallels to the experiments in electronic composition from the 1960s and 1970s. Percussion master Alejandro Coello is featured throughout on marimba and acoustic percussion. The austere “Utah” began its germination while Barber ran an overnight stretch in the deserts of Utah, jotting down notes when stopping at rest breaks. The piece retains a steady, pacing beat count and a hauntingly dark mix of percussion and electronics.

The continually expanding “Bryce Canyon” continues to gain momentum throughout its development until it reaches a climax near 200 beats per minute and is a perfect two minutes for the dancefloor. The cinematic “Zion Park” relates the composer’s feeling pressure during a grueling race of 100 miles at 1,000 meters elevation, an incredible feat of endurance. The piece uses a cell of melodic and rhythmic information that continues to reoccur throughout the entire piece, developing drama from small repetitive actions. The nocturnally shaded “San Francisco” begins as a twinkling view of this crest filled city on the Bay before its insistence picks up into a late-night sprint.

The hazy resonance of “Santa Monica” emanates from a MIDI guitar that Barber handles deftly, making three vastly different moods emerge from one another, like visiting different pictures in an exhibition. The snow can practically be seen in the mind’s eye on “Cold Spring,” as guest Craig Taborn provides lovely piano and a touch of mystery to this enveloping ambient piece. The program concludes with the electro funk of “Vermont,” a piece where Barber focuses his attention on his electric guitar, reaching exhilarating technical and emotive heights.

The incredible music on Diego Barber’s Drago is a departure from his typical output but it also shows the development of an artist who accepts musical challenges and finds exhilaration in chasing the unknown.

1. Drago
2. Leadville
3. Utah
4. Bryce Canyon 06:14
5. Zion Park
6. San Francisco
7. Santa Monica
8. Cold Spring
9. Vermont

Diego Barber - guitar, electronics
Theo Bleckmann - voice (1)
Alejandro Coello - percussion (2)
Craig Taborn - piano (8)

Monday, February 15, 2021

Hafez Modirzadeh - Facets (March 5, 2021 Pi Recordings)

Facets is saxophonist/composer Hafez Modirzadeh’s latest radical entreaty against the cultural hegemony of the Western notion of equal temperament and his argument that musicians should be free to explore a variety of tonal possibilities, even on piano. His 2012 release Post-Chromodal Out! was the first documentation of this concept, where the piano was tuned to a variety of temperaments. Performed with pianist Vijay Iyer, The New York Times called that album “Dauntless… There’s heady discipline at work here, along with the stirrings of a hard-fought individualism.” With his new release, Modirzadeh has distilled the idea to a single re-tuning, which is performed in duets with three towering musicians in contemporary improvised music: Kris Davis, Tyshawn Sorey and Craig Taborn, each interrogating the piano’s new possibilities with imagination and ingenuity. Modirzadeh himself utilizes alternate fingerings and embouchure adjustments on his instrument to achieve intervals between major and minor, and the pieces sway with an elasticity reminiscent of Persian poetic meter. With eight keys re-tuned and the remainder left in equal temperament, the music explores the coexistence of familiar with unfamiliar, and in the process, discovers new logic and mysterious beauty within.

Modirzadeh, who the San Jose Mercury News has called “visionary,” described the imperative to re-tune the piano this way: “The standardized temperament for piano, as beautiful as it is, carries an unbalanced weight of influence over players and listeners, leading many to believe that there is no other resonance to work with but this one. This creates a value system that is unjust and ultimately limits the discovery of other, more personal tuning possibilities. By retuning the piano – the one instrument that imposes a dominant influence on the world’s music – the musician is freed to explore all tonal possibilities.” This urge is the culmination of a system he originally called “chromodality,” which he developed to explore the harmonic possibilities of integrating Persian tones with Western equal temperament. The concept has since evolved to allow all intervals to co-exist, which empowers each musician to use their own distinctive voice to explore music from a full palette of tonal possibilities, irrespective of cultural background. The tuning Modirzadeh has chosen for this program was one that spoke to him personally after much testing and tweaking. Vijay Iyer says of Modirzadeh: “The scope of Hafez’s synthesis of concepts across cultures is staggering. There is great detail in his critical engagement with traditional intervallic systems, tuning systems, and modes, and there is also a grand sweep to his vision across disciplines and historical eras. In spite of its technical complications, there is genuine heart to this music and a real spiritual clarity. Modirzadeh is not simply a ‘scholar’ or ‘musicologist,’ but a genuine artist, with a profound, lifelong stake in the unification of research, creative work, and personal inner quest that is expressed in his music.”

Interested in hearing the different approaches that each musician will bring to the concept, Modirzadeh has been inviting pianists from various disciplines to engage with this music. For the recording of Facets, Modirzadeh chose three of the most acclaimed musicians in improvised music: Kris Davis is recognized as one of the foremost pianists in jazz. Her release Diatom Ribbons (2019) topped most year-end lists as best album of the year. For a quarter century, Craig Taborn has been similarly recognized as a master of sheer invention on the piano. Tyshawn Sorey, who is a stalwart with Pi Recordings, has won recent praise for the premiere for his new works with the Seattle Symphony and Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Primarily known as a drummer, he brings the same sensitivity and openness to discovery as the other pianists. They were sent the scores in advance, but their first encounter with the actual re-tuned piano was at their respective recording sessions. Each musician works from the same set of pieces, spending time exploring the novel resonances, before running through the entire book of compositions. Modirzadeh gave minimal instructions, preferring to allow each musician to shape the music as they imagine it. As Modirzadeh said in an interview: “It takes more heart than head, with the intention of something beautiful.” He subsequently chose what he felt to be the most magical of these performances for this release.

The program unfolds with “Facet Taborn,” which was improvised by the pianist at the very end of his session after intense focus on the compositions. The otherworldly resonances are introduced, opening the door to further mysteries within. “Dawn Facet” and “Facet 27 Light” are interpretations of the same composition, first by Sorey, then by Davis. Modirzadeh’s saxophone is gentle, vulnerable, as if opening himself to all possibilities from his partners. Modirzadeh calls “Facet 28 Nora” “the cornerstone melody of all Facets.” His playing is delicate and loving, tender and haunting. “Facet 34 Defracted” is Davis’s radical mash-up of Thelonious Monk’s “Pannonica” and “Ask Me Now,” compositions that Modirzadeh separately interprets in duet with Taborn. For Davis, “It all made sense when we started playing the Monk tunes. Monk had this effect where he would try to ‘bend’ the note on the piano by adding a note below the melody subtly for a moment, and I heard that connection right away between Hafez’s tuning system and the Monk tunes he chose. It’s like living in those bends that Monk was creating, committing fully to the microtones he was trying to achieve in that effect. I believe that if he heard these versions of his compositions, he would consider re-tuning his piano for good!”

As Iyer notes: “This album signals that we are entering a crucial new phase in this journey: a collective meditation, an unlocking of forms and truths. I can hardly imagine a clearer monument, to our cataclysmic year than this set of stark, intimate, heartfelt jewels by these four singular truth-seekers.”

1. Facet Taborn
2. Dawn Facet
3. Facet 27 Light
4. Facet 28 Nora
5. Facet 29 Night
6. Facet 34 Defracted
7. Ask Me Now
8. Facet Sorey
9. Facet 31 Wake
10. Ebb Facet
11. Facet 33 Tides
12. Flow Facet
13. Pannonica
14. Facet BB
15. Facet 35 Ode B'kongofon
16. Facet 32 Black Pearl
17. Facet 39 Mato Paha
18. Ode Reprise

Hafez Modirzadeh - tenor saxophone (2-5, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 17)
Kris Davis - piano (3, 4, 6, 9, 12, 16)
Tyshawn Sorey - piano (2, 5, 8, 10, 14, 17)
Craig Taborn - piano (1, 7, 11, 13, 15, 18)

Thursday, February 4, 2021

Roscoe Mitchell - Splatter (i dischi di angelica 2020)


 Internationally renowned musician and composer Roscoe Mitchell, since his debut with Sound in 1966, has defined his style through an innovative approach towards composition in what is traditionally an improvised music genre, pre-empting the development of jazz and its relationship with contemporary music in the following decades.

Splatter, drawn from two concerts held at the AngelicA festival in Bologna in 2017, presents the most recent developments of this research, with two examples from his cycle Conversations for large orchestra. Started in 2016, it is based on the transcription and subsequent orchestration of what originated as his improvisations with the trio including Craig Taborn and Kikanju Baku, for the album Conversations I and II which was released in 2014.


From the evening with the Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna directed by Tonino Battista, the CD includes the Italian premiere of Splatter and the word premiere of Distant Radio Transmission, a work which further broadens the reflections on the relationship between composition and improvisation, incorporating the contribution of two improvisers (Thomas Buckner and Mitchell himself) in response to, and counterbalancing, the “improvised/transcribed/composed” material.

The lion’s share of the CD is represented by a duet, the fruit of a proposal by the Festival, a concert with a musician that Mitchell met for the first time on the same day: Francesco Filidei. Filidei, from Pisa, is an organist and former assistant of Jean Guillou at Saint-Eustache’s Church in Paris, as well as a composer whose music has been performed at the most significant contemporary music festivals by orchestras like Itinéraire, Nouvel Ensemble Modern, Ensemble intercontemporain, Percussions de Strasbourg, Quartetto Prometeo and Klangforum Wien.

Breath and Pipes, recorded at the Basilica di Santa Maria dei Servi in Bologna, is a testament to this encounter: as Joshua Marshall writes in the CD liner notes, it is “an improvisatory tour de force, demonstrating the uncanny sort of electrokinetic thrill which emerges out of the capacity of two brilliant improvisers to truly surprise one another”.


Premiere recording

Roscoe Mitchell alto, soprano, sopranino saxophone
Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna
Tonino Battista conductor
Thomas Buckner baritone voice
Francesco Filidei organ

1 - SPLATTER for orchestra
Music by Roscoe Mitchell, Craig Taborn, Kikanju Baku
Transcription and orchestration by Christopher Mega Luna

2 - DISTANT RADIO TRANSMISSION for improvisers and orchestra
Music by Roscoe Mitchell, Craig Taborn, Kikanju Baku
Transcription by Stephen P. Harvey
Transcription and orchestration of air sounds for strings by John Ivers
Orchestration by Roscoe Mitchell

3 - BREATH AND PIPES
Music by Roscoe Mitchell, Francesco Filidei

Friday, October 5, 2018

Lotte Anker / Gerald Cleaver / Craig Taborn - Floating Islands (Three Pieces) CENTRIFUGA November 1, 2018


The album is a live performance recorded during CPH jazz festival in 2008. Floating Islands was issued on CD in 2009 on ILK music, and finally we are able to make this superb recording available on vinyl in a collaboration between ILK, Insula Music and Centrifuga.


Saxophones – Lotte Anker
Drums – Gerald Cleaver
Piano – Craig Taborn

Mixed and Mastered By – John Fomsgaard
Recorded live at Borups Concert Hall



Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Dan Weiss - Starebaby (PI RECORDINGS 2018)



Starebaby is the upshot of drummer/composer Dan Weiss’s long-running dream to bring together some of the most accomplished players on the jazz scene to play music that combines the improvisation nature of that music with the power of heavy metal and electronic new music. One of the most in-demand drummers in jazz, Weiss performs with such disparate artists as Rudresh Mahanthappa, Chris Potter, John Zorn and Jen Shyu, evidence of the breadth of his artistry. As with his two critically-acclaimed previous releases — Fourteen, which was named one of the best releases of 2014 by The New York Times, and Sixteen: Drummers Suite, — Starebaby is a decidedly original work that is largely without precedence, reflecting the power of conviction coming from a single, brimming wellspring.

Weiss has wanted to put this particular project together for over a decade. As with his prior output, it reflects his catholic taste in music, where jazz improvisation, doom metal, electro-acoustic music, Indian beat cycles, and innumerable other influences are all compounded into an outpouring of personal expression completely beyond musical boundaries. Starebaby, though, definitely tilts towards the heavy, and Weiss, in particular, cites as influences metal bands such as Meshuggah, Burning Witch, High on Fire, Gorguts, early Metallica, Wormed, and Confessor; electronic and electro acoustic composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Bernard Parmegiani, and Luc Ferrari; and every type of jazz ranging from Sidney Bechet to Threadgill. It is also inspired by Season 3 of the television show Twin Peaks, whose surreal, ominous emotional landscape helped shape the overall feel of this music. The music ebbs and flows, surging to thundering swells of foreboding doom before tempering to quiet reflection, finding a deep space where brutal aggression meets ghostly vulnerability. The expansive soundscape ranges from fortissimo to pianissimo, grave to presto, and dense, roiling dissonance to exquisite, pellucid melodies.


All of the musicians: Craig Taborn and Matt Mitchell on keyboards, piano, and electronics, Ben Monder on guitar, and Trevor Dunn on bass, along with Weiss – some of the heaviest hitters in the jazz/improvised music scene – share a love for heavy metal. It’s an astonishment to hear them play in this distinctly different setting, but perhaps the absolute authority they display should not be a complete surprise. Weiss played with the doom metal band Bloody Panda a dozen years ago and Dunn was a member of the experimental rock bands Mr. Bungle (with Faith No More singer Mike Patton) Fantômas (also with Patton), and Secret Chiefs 3. Weiss’s thundering gestures and Dunn’s shuddering, sludgy bass serve as the backbone of this music. Mitchell and Taborn are well known for their adroit experimentation on electronics, and they deliver to the music a huge variety of swirling textures and color. Monder’s own music usually tilts toward the spacious, so it’s somewhat of a surprise to hear him outright shredding with overdriven distortion. Together, they perform this music with complete conviction, melding meticulous precision, prodigious power, and masterful improvisation.

According to Matt Mitchell: “One thing I admire about Dan’s composing it’s how he manages to transcend stylistic issues. Although heavy music is undoubtedly the primary inspiration for this batch of material, I notice here many updated examples of forms that I associate with Dan’s composing: strong, direct melodies; long cycles allowing for building towards ecstatic climaxes; multiple instruments asymmetrically orbiting each other. Unique to this project is the combination of a very strong and distinctive compositional voice and extensive contribution from each of the musicians. Although this is Dan’s music through-and-through in a very specific way, he asked for a lot of input, especially regarding timbre, and he provided many novel spaces in which to improvise or act as a sonic free agent. All these qualities taken together result in an extremely powerful and multifarious musical message, one in which it is a privilege to take part.”

1. A Puncher's Chance 03:10
2. Depredation 05:32
3. Annica 09:04
4. Badalamenti 06:53
5. Cry Box 06:20
6. The Memory of My Memory 10:18
7. Veiled 04:23
8. Episode 8 14:28

Dan Weiss (drums, compositions)
Ben Monder (guitars)
Trevor Dunn (electric bass)
Craig Taborn (keyboards, piano)
Matt Mitchell (keyboards, piano)

Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Dave Holland - Uncharted Territories 2CD (DARE2 RECORDS May 11, 2018)


Uncharted Territories, which will be released in 2CD and 3LP formats, reunites Dave Holland with saxophonist Evan Parker, a longtime friend from their early days in London. Theyre joined by Craig Taborn, on piano and electronics, and Ches Smith on percussion. In addition to quartet improvisations, they also broke off into every possible subset of duo and trio configurations. The group also recorded two compositions by Smith and one by Holland. A resulting 23 tracks present a series of deep, multi-layered conversations between the musicians, some of whom were interacting for the first time.


DISC 1
1 Thought on earth
2 Piano - bass - percussion t1
3 Q&a
4 Tenor - bass w3
5 Qt12
6 Duo bass tenor w3
7 Qw2
8 Tenor - piano - bass t2
9 Organ - vibes w1
10 Bass - percussion t2
11 Tenor - piano - percussion t1
12 Qt13

DISC 2
1 Tenor - bass - percussion t2
2 Piano - percussion w3
3 Qt5
4 Tenor - bass w1
5 Piano - bass - percussion t2
6 Unsteady as she goes
7 Bass - percussion t1
8 Qw5
9 Tenor - bass - percussion t1
10 Tenor - bass w3
11 Qw1

Evan Parker, saxophones
Craig Taborn, piano
Ches Smith, drums, percussion

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Kris Davis / Craig Taborn - Octopus (2018)


On her 2016 album Duopoly, pianist Kris Davis highlighted her deeply attuned artistry as never before. Conceived as a set of rotating duo performances, Duopoly found Davis in the company of Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, Don Byron, Julian Lage, Marcus Gilmore and other musical giants. Of all these fascinating encounters, it was the pairing of Davis and fellow piano great Craig Taborn, that sparked further extensive collaboration. Soon the two pianists would embark on a 12-city tour of the U.S., with new music for the occasion. Octopus, a magisterial live album drawn from three of those concerts, is the result. 

Recalling the Duopoly session with Taborn, Davis writes in her liner notes: “From the moment we started playing I felt instantly transported and free within the music, and had the sense we could go anywhere.” Taborn responded similarly: “It was remarkable how effortless and inspired it felt. It was immediately apparent that it was easy to make music happen in this pairing and that we were well matched in terms of both aesthetics and approach.” 

With the support of The Shifting Foundation, Davis and Taborn set out to translate their in-studio rapport to the concert stage, which resulted in the Octopus tour: from Brooklyn’s Roulette to Seattle’s Earshot Festival, from the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC to the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio. Ron Saint Germain, engineer on the Duopoly duo sessions, came along on the road with a recording rig designed to capture two grand pianos in a variety of spaces. 


“The pieces on Octopus are the pieces we played every night on the tour,” Davis explains. “Each concert was different, in some cases radically so. We often left out large sections of the compositions in favor of developing new, wholly improvised sections which became more and more expansive.” Along with their new original works, the duo included absorbing interpretations of Carla Bley’s “Sing Me Softly of the Blues” and Sun Ra’s “Love in Outer Space.” 

Of Davis’s two contributions, “Ossining” is the more contemplative and restrained, inspired by the composer’s recent move to the Hudson Valley with her husband, the guitarist Nate Radley, and their son, Benjamin. The move took place while Davis was on the Octopus tour. “Moving is always stressful and I wanted to be there with my family.” she says. “My son was walking me through the new house on the phone while we were traveling to each city, telling me all about his new room and the backyard, which we didn’t have in Brooklyn. I was missing out on those first impressions, but I was happy to have a little piece of the experience with him on the phone that day.” 

Davis’s subtle prepared piano on “Ossining” serves not only to differentiate the piano sounds but to heighten their rhythmic interplay: “When I wrote the piece, I was listening to some West African music and looking into how some of that music is constructed. I began studying this music when I was a student at Banff 20 years ago, studying with Abraham Adzenyah and have continued to be fascinated by it.” 

There’s a very specific, conversational quality to this West African percussion music – trance-like repetition, variation, and contrapuntal pulse. Davis was drawn to this, as it placed her and Taborn on an equal plane from the piece’s onset. She elaborates “In performance, Craig and I intertwine a series of improvised repetitive rhythms, with the idea being that the whole supersedes the sum of the parts.” 

The high dissonance and denser, more urgent rhythmic attack of Davis’s “Chatterbox” creates a striking contrast: brilliantly articulated masses of notes and harmonic ideas unfurl; Taborn ultimately grounds the piece in a more defined bass motion and Davis perceptively responds. 

Taborn’s “Interruptions” transpire as three distinctly different pieces. “The ‘Interruptions’ were conceived as just that,” he reveals, “small composed pieces or objects that could be used within a larger improvisation to redirect or recondition the musical environment. They could be selected and dropped in at some point as a composed statement that interrupts another texture. They seemed to stand on their own enough as compositions, but I intended them almost as interstitial material. So there’s no through-line between them. I intended each one to change the musical space in different ways.” 


The choice of Sun Ra’s elegant “Love in Outer Space” was Taborn’s: “I always liked it and thought it would work well in the two-piano context because of its interlocking groove.” It is here that the contrast between piano voices is most immediately apparent: Taborn plays the intro and the initial bass line, then Davis enters with the main melody. Davis brought in Carla Bley’s “Sing Me Softly of the Blues” (famously played by Art Farmer with Steve Kuhn in the mid-’60s), a 14-bar blues with a slowly unfolding, lopsided feel that morphs imperceptibly into Taborn’s third and final “Interruption.” 

Whether leading her Capricorn Climber quintet or her four-bass-clarinet-octet Infrasound; working with the great Andrew Cyrille as a member of Eric Revis’s trio; or lifting up recent music by John Zorn, Terri Lyne Carrington, Tom Rainey, Michael Formanek, Ingrid Laubrock and more, Davis is one of the groundbreaking artists of our time, hailed by Jason Moran as “a freethinking, gifted pianist [who] lives in each note that she plays.” 

Taborn’s recent ECM releases Chants, Daylight Ghosts and Avenging Angel, along with his work in Farmers By Nature, Chris Lightcap’s Bigmouth and many others, have earned him distinction as “one of the greatest living pianists,” in the words of his colleague Vijay Iyer. Together, Davis and Taborn have a way of merging into “one sort of shape-shifting organism,” as Davis ventures in her liner notes. Octopus, evoking limitless limbs and rapid, graceful, unpredictable movements, is the Davis-Taborn sensibility incarnate.


1. Kris Davis/Craig Taborn - Interruptions One 10:54
2. Kris Davis/Craig Taborn - Ossining 08:02
3. Kris Davis/Craig Taborn - Chatterbox 10:04
4. Kris Davis/Craig Taborn - Sing Me Softly Of The Blues – Interruptions Two 14:36
5. Kris Davis/Craig Taborn - Interruptions Three 07:15
6. Kris Davis/Craig Taborn - Love in Outer Space 07:47

Kris Davis (piano / composition) 
Craig Taborn (piano / composition)