COMPOSERS: Andrew Cyrille Quartet
LABELS: ECM
ALBUM TITLE: Andrew Cyrille Quartet
WORKS: The Declaration of Musical Independence
PERFORMER: Bill Frisell (guitar), Richard Teitelbaum (synthesiser, piano), Ben Street (double bass), Andrew Cyrille (drums)
CATALOGUE NO: ECM 471 9575
Andrew Cyrille, here making his ECM debut, has had previous associations with all his quartet’s members. The drummer’s approach has always combined free-flowing imagination with precision and discipline, manifest here as a robust framework that leaves his associates plenty of room. Guitarist Bill Frisell employs one of his trademark styles, his instrument speaking with a Texan drawl, while Street’s underpinning is deft and assured. Teitelbaum has recorded with Cyrille before, but his work is often associated with Chicago’s avant-garde jazz composer Anthony Braxton. His piano work here is sparse yet unpredictable, but it’s his synthesizer patches, ranging from sax sounds to unclassifiable rustlings and bleeps, that make a mark on this abstract-to-melodic ‘post-free’ jazz. The recorded sound is a little sharper than is usual for ECM, which serves the music well.
Roger Thomas