| Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by | ||||
| Released | 2007 | |||
| Recorded | September 2004 | |||
| Venue | Munich, Germany | |||
| Genre | Jazz | |||
| Label | ECM ECM 1872 | |||
| Roscoe Mitchell chronology | ||||
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Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 is a live album by jazz saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell recorded in Germany in September 2004 and released on ECM in 2007. [1]
The album came about when, in 2003, Munich's cultural attaché contacted ECM and inquired as to which musicians might be appropriate for a symposium focusing on improvisation as part of the compositional process. ECM recommended Mitchell and Evan Parker, and the two were then commissioned to prepare music for an ensemble which would be hand-picked by the two of them, for concerts to be held in Munich in September 2004. The ensemble heard on the recording, referred to as the "Transatlantic Art Ensemble", consisted of players from the U.S. and U.K. drawn from Mitchell's Note Factory group, members of which also appear on the ECM recordings Nine to Get Ready and Far Side , and Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, members of which can be heard on the ECM recordings The Eleventh Hour and The Moment's Energy . [2] The Transatlantic Art Ensemble can also be heard on the Parker album Boustrophedon , which was recorded as part of the same symposium, and which serves as a companion to Mitchell's album. [3]
The album presents nine scenes from Mitchell's "Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3": Parts I, II, V, VI, VII, and IX were derived from "Composition/Improvisation 2", Parts VIII and IV from "Composition/Improvisation 1", and Part III from "Composition/Improvisation 3". Some sections of the work are fully notated, while others present a "calibrated freedom extended variously to individual musicians, sub-groups of players, or the entire ensemble." [2] According to Mitchell,
For the symposium in Munich, I devised three methods of improvisation with composition. One method involved each player getting a part and also six cards with scored improvisation on them. One piece used a limited number of notes, and I asked the players to use only those notes for improvisation. And for the third piece, I asked players to select their information from the composition and construct improvisation based on that.” [2]
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Penguin Guide to Jazz |  [4] |
| AllMusic |  [5] |
| The Guardian | [6] |
The authors of The Penguin Guide to Jazz awarded the album 4 stars and selected it as part of their suggested Core Collection. [4] Thom Jurek, in a review for AllMusic, awarded the album 4 stars, commenting that the music sounds "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... 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." [5]
Writing for The Guardian, John Fordham stated: "Mitchell has said he has dreamed of 'an ensemble of improvising musicians with an orchestral range' and he has it here – but if large-ensemble improv music suggests a dissonant turmoil, this is a contemporary music (frequently classical-sounding) of rich sonority, plenty of contrast, and patient development... If this is still something of a specialised choice, it's a beautifully recorded and unusually varied one." [6]
In a review for All About Jazz, Marc Medwin called the album "a triumph of stunning solo work and monumental group interplay that crosses and recrosses boundaries as it proceeds", and stated: "Like Boulez' structures of the '50s and '60s, Mitchell's nine-part suite... are sequenced out of order, putting a stranglehold on any conventional grasp of temporality. The music itself bolsters the illusion, long passages of post-Webern pointillism superimposed over Varèse-ian shocks and bursts, all underpinned by the pulsing shadow of Ligeti... With Mitchell exploring such fertile avenues, any guess at future plans would be folly. May he continue in whatever direction his muse leads him." [7] In a separate review for the same publication, Budd Kopman wrote: "Roscoe Mitchell has long worked in the space where the composed and the improvised coexist and merge. Composition/Improvisation Nos. 1, 2 & 3 is a glorious example of music that expertly combines the strengths of both... a moving experience." [8]
In an article for The Nation, Brian Morton stated that "The immediate feel... is very much of a classical group, with strings, tymps and piano, generating a sound-world that makes one think first of European art music," and called the ending "deliciously ambiguous," writing: "Far from reaching a climax, the sequence dissolves into a shimmer, as if some tiny subset of the whole cosmological process has gone into reverse, solids turning to gas, orbits no longer regular or fixed, location and velocity uncertain. Nothing in the whole canon of twentieth-century Western art music conveys so much satisfying mystery." [9]
Commenting on both Mitchell's album and Parker's Boustrophedon, Tyran Grillo wrote: "The sense of flow imparted by the compositional elements in both albums is breathtaking, building textures organically and never indulging in extremes for too long. Rather, the continuity lies somewhere in the shadows, balancing on the fulcrum of surrender between static and whisper. In the end, such teetering of intuition becomes a way of life, a mantra for those whose ears flower with curiosity." [10]
Roscoe Mitchell is an American composer, jazz instrumentalist, and educator, known for being "a technically superb – if idiosyncratic – saxophonist". The Penguin Guide to Jazz described him as "one of the key figures" in avant-garde jazz; All About Jazz stated in 2004 that he had been "at the forefront of modern music" for more than 35 years. Critic Jon Pareles in The New York Times has mentioned that Mitchell "qualifies as an iconoclast". In addition to his own work as a bandleader, Mitchell is known for cofounding the Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM).
Evan Shaw Parker is a British tenor and soprano saxophone player who plays free improvisation.
Kenneth Vincent John Wheeler, OC was a Canadian composer and trumpet and flugelhorn player, based in the U.K. from the 1950s onwards.
Barry John Guy is an English composer and double bass player. His range of interests encompasses early music, contemporary composition, jazz and improvisation, and he has worked with a wide variety of orchestras in the UK and Europe. He studied at the Guildhall School of Music under Buxton Orr, and later taught there.
Tani Tabbal is a jazz drummer who has worked with Roscoe Mitchell, David Murray, and Cassandra Wilson.
Philipp John Paul Wachsmann is an African avant-garde jazz/jazz fusion violinist born in Kampala, Uganda, probably better known for having founded his own group Chamberpot. He has worked with many musicians in the free jazz idiom, including Tony Oxley, Fred van Hove, Barry Guy, Derek Bailey and Paul Rutherford, among many others. Wachsmann is especially known for playing within the electronica idiom.
Paul Lytton is an English free jazz and free improvising percussionist.
A Jackson in Your House is a 1969 album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago recorded for the French BYG Actuel label. It features performances by Lester Bowie, Joseph Jarman, Roscoe Mitchell and Malachi Favors Maghostut. When issued on CD by Affinity in 1989, the track "The Waltz" was replaced by a six-minute live excerpt entitled "Hey Friend" which has never reappeared on any subsequent reissue.
Nice Guys is an album by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, recorded in May 1978 and released on ECM the following year—their debut for the label. The quintet features trumpeter Lester Bowie, saxophinists Joseph Jarman and Roscoe Mitchell and rhythm section Malachi Favors Maghostut and Famoudou Don Moye.
Afternoon of a Georgia Faun is an album by American jazz saxophonist Marion Brown recorded on August 10, 1970 and released on ECM later that year. The sextet features fellow saxophonists Anthony Braxton and Bennie Maupin, pianist Chick Corea, and vocalists Jeanne Lee and Gayle Palmore, backed by two percussionists on one side and five on the other.
Toward the Margins is an album by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, recorded in 1996 and released on the ECM New Series the following year.
Nine to Get Ready is an album by American jazz saxophonist and composer Roscoe Mitchell recorded in May 1997 and released on ECM in 1999. The nonet features brass section Hugh Ragin and George Lewis, and double-rhythm section Matthew Shipp and Craig Taborn, Jaribu Shahid and William Parker, and Tani Tabbal and Gerald Cleaver.
Boustrophedon is a live album by free jazz saxophonist and composer Evan Parker and the Transatlantic Art Ensemble, featuring Roscoe Mitchell, recorded in Germany in September 2004 and released on ECM in 2008.
Memory/Vision is a live album by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble recorded at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo in October 2002 and released on ECM the following year.
The Eleventh Hour is an album by British saxophonist and improvisor Evan Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble recorded in November 2004 and released on ECM the following year.
The Moment's Energy is an live album by the Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble recorded at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in November 2007 and released on ECM in 2009.
Ken Stubbs is an English jazz musician, alto saxophonist and composer.
Rocket Science is the eponymous debut album by the collaborative quartet assembled by trumpeter Peter Evans and featuring British saxophonist Evan Parker, pianist Craig Taborn and computer musician Sam Pluta. It was recorded live at the Vortex in London, at the start of the quartet's first tour which then visited the Bimhuis in Amsterdam and the Moers Festival in Germany. Evans recorded Scenes in the House of Music with the Parker-Guy-Lytton trio, and is a member of Parker's Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. Taborn played piano in Parker's Transatlantic Art Ensemble which recorded Boustrophedon. Pluta is a member of the Peter Evans Quintet that recorded Ghosts.
The Music Improvisation Company is the debut album by the Music Improvisation Company, recorded over three days in August 1970 and released on ECM later that year. The quartet features saxophonist Evan Parker, guitarist Derek Bailey, Hugh Davies on various self-made electronic instruments, and percussionist Jamie Muir, with guest vocalist Christine Jeffrey appearing on two tracks.
Jaribu Abdurahman Shahid is an American jazz bassist. He plays both double-bass and electric bass.
