Reflections

構成数 : 1枚
合計収録時間 : 00:00:00
Personnel: Steve Lacy (soprano saxophone); Mal Waldron (piano); Buell Neidlinger (bass); Elvin Jones (drums). Recorded at the Van Gelder Studio, Hackensack, New Jersey on October 17, 1958. Originally released on New Jazz (8206). Includes original liner notes by Ira Gitler. Digitally remastered by Phil De Lancie (1990, Fantasy Studios, Berkeley). The year 1958 was a watershed for the music of Thelonious Monk. Long viewed as impenetrably abstract or obscure, the great pianist-composer was in the midst of a personal renaissance thanks to his extended stays at the Five Spot in New York, leading quartets featuring saxophone innovators like John Coltrane and Johnny Griffin. But with the exception of a few chestnuts, such as "Round About Midnight" and "Straight No Chaser" (both immortalized by Miles Davis), few musicians had accepted the challenge of his more difficult works. One musician undaunted by the challenge of Monk's music was Steve Lacy, who in the days before John Coltrane's ascendancy was the only saxophonist of note to carry on the legacy of Sidney Bechet and perform on the soprano saxophone. Such was Lacy's dedication to the difficult little horn that he concentrated on it exclusively, and was making a name for himself in performances with the great modernist Cecil Taylor (later he joined tenor colossus Sonny Rollins for practice sessions on the Williamsburg Bridge). On REFLECTIONS, the soprano virtuoso gathered an imposing quartet--Billie Holiday's pianist Mal Waldron, Cecil Taylor's bassist Buell Neidlinger, and a young percussive upstart from Detroit named Elvin Jones--and tackled some of Monk's thorniest themes to such perfection that the composer himself expressed pleasure at Lacy's efforts. Jones' cubist rhythmic figures announce the knotty lines to "Four In One," as Lacy soars back and forth across Neidlinger's big beat. Lacy never descends to running changes, but adds and subtracts from the theme in very personal rhythmic variations. Lacy and Waldron play a gentle game of ping-pong with the melody and chords to "Reflections," capturing the orchestral equipoise of Monk's architecture. Jones and Neidlinger capture the two-beat tension of Monk's tempos on "Hornin' In," as Lacy's keen tone suggests Bechet's song-like fervor, and Waldron echoes Monk's pungent use of space, finding his own personal blues inside the melody.