Tree Dancing

This recording from the earlier years of Cafe Oto documents the impossible pairing of four contemporary giants. It's the reason the venue opened in the first place, for miraculous one-off groupings like this. "The magic of the first minutes - an alto solo by Joe McPhee of true purity - soft-spoken, masterful and accomplished - brought back to mind the blissful Coleman/Haden duet last year at the Royal Festival Hall. 'Ornette gave me freedom to move in a certain way,' said McPhee. He searched hesitantly and carefully for his words, all the more surprising from such an articulate musical (or, as he might say 'muse-ical') practitioner and campaigner. Coleman's 80th birthday coincided with McPhee's stint at Cafe Oto. McPhee and his co-musicians delivered an intense performance which was both creative and restrained. With Evan Parker's tenor in tow - a collaboration going back to the late '70s - and Lol Coxhill, sitting with head bowed intently, a soprano master - it could have gone anywhere, yet they worked off each other, often in the higher registers, building up almost bird-call like interactions and trills. Earlier, Chris Corsano's drumming presented a dense bedrock for McPhee to play against, and his solo spell was a crisp exercise in sonic curiosity. McPhee picked up his soprano mid-way through the second set, heightening the lyricism of the three saxophones. Then, being a devotee of Don Cherry, he switched to pocket trumpet, allowing him to interject, and punctuate the concentrated sound layers built up by the quartet, and lead the music out through a different door." -Geoff Winston, London Jazz News. Recorded March 10th 2010, this is also a document of the only time Lol Coxhill and Joe McPhee shared the stage. The recording is a little rough, but hey, so was your birth! Mini gatefold sleeve; edition of 500.

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