This CD reissue of pianist and composer Muhal Richard Abrams's first record as a bandleader evinces both his singular focus on the piano and his command of an ensemble playing a difficult score. The music is highly wrought yet full of free space for expressive possibility. His keyboard technique unfolds gorgeously, from full piano runs that teeter into glissandi and shaken tonal foundations, to a jarring, ear-popping life that rattles the bones. With his young group of up-and-coming Chicago talent, Abrams presented his 21-plus minute "Wise in Time" with a breathtaking balance: composed and improvised passages happen in tandem; space and density collide; tonality and atonality chatter together. In short, Abrams's is a historical quilt work that decodes a great deal of other jazz avant-garde works while standing brightly, complexly on its own.

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Pianist Muhal Richard Abrams will forever be remembered as a cofounder of Chicago's venerated Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM). While his leadership in the organization is admirable (he was president almost continuously from 1965 to 1977), Abrams was a musical innovator as well. Things to Come from Those Now Gone, originally released in 1972, was his third album for Delmark. Featuring the talents of reedist Ari Brown, bassist Rufus Reid, drummer Steve McCall, and others, the album is extremely varied, featuring different combinations of instruments on each of the seven tracks. Abrams and company often dwell on elegiac musings rooted in the blues, early jazz, and gospel, but there is also some ferocious free jazz interplay at times. The pianist's playing is often contemplative, filled with open spaces and spare chords; when he does pick up the pace, though, Abrams produces material that fits nicely into the great bop-colored traditions in much the same way the Art Ensemble of Chicago's music does. Undoubtedly a sign of how fresh this album sounded when it was originally released, the music here is timeless.

CD available at:
amazon.com