#the willisau concert

[ontheothersideofthehill]

2002

Cook, Richard, Morton, Brian. The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings. nineth edition. New York: Penguin Books, 2008. p. 1383. https://archive.org/details/penguinguidetoja0000cook_9ed.

Giddins, Gary. Weather Bird: Jazz at the Dawn of its Second Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004. pp. 438–439. https://archive.org/details/weatherbirdjazza0000gidd.

[bamboomusiclist]

2/3 おはようございます。Electric City / Electric City EMLP7703 等更新完了しました。

Dinah Shore / sings Some Blues With Red t1354 Kay Starr / Swingin' With The Starr SL9001 Kay Starr / I Cry by Night t1681 Lucy Ann Polk / Lucky Lucy Ann modlp115 Chet Baker / Peace enja4016 Peter Ind / Time For Improvisation LP4 Gerry Mulligan / a Profile of Gerry Mulligan mg20453 Jj Johnson / Jazz Quintets Mg12106 Oscar Peterson / Something Warm v8681 Ladi Geisler / Die Rockgitarre Von Ladi Geisler BFX15363 Pierre Favre / Mountain Wind GEM1044 Joe McPhee John Snyder / The Willisau Concert HAT-B Electric City / Electric City EMLP7703 Mud / Shake It Down - Laugh Live Love PVT65 Francois Rabbath / La Guerre Et La Paix MN22005

~bamboo music~

info@bamboo-music.net  

530-0028 大阪市北区万歳町3-41 シロノビル104号

06-6363-2700

[fuchsiaswingsong]

Fred Hopkins in concert with AIR, Willisau, 2 September 1978. By Dani Gignoux

[tonin-terets]

Niklaus Troxler Motion Tribute — side by side from Dase Boogie on Vimeo.

A journey through Niklaus Troxler’s jazz posters universe.

A 56 posters motion tribute over almost 2 minutes.

All original poster designs belong to Niklaus Troxler. I manually traced all of them in Illustrator and animated in After Effects. Total ~175 hours of work including research, trace, font digging and animation.

Music and sound design - Soul Supreme

From Niklaus Troxler Poster Collection book (Lars Müller Publishers): “Few contemporary designers devote themselves to the poster medium with such perseverance as Niklaus Troxler. His extensive oeuvre includes the design of CD, album, and book covers, logos, interior and exterior graphics, as well as free illustrative and artistic works. However, the poster-and especially the jazz poster-is his passion. Troxler organized the first jazz concert in Willisau in 1966, and in 1975 he founded a festival there that has since brought established and lesser-known names in Swiss and international jazz to the stage on an annual basis. He directed the event and was responsible for the design of the concert and festival posters until 2009, at which time he handed both over to a younger generation.”

[dustedmagazine]

Joe McPhee – The Willisau Concert (Hat Hut/Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Numerous are the musicians who adopt the DIY tack and launch record labels to document their work. Relatively few are those that can claim an enterprise founded by others with the express purpose of releasing their music. Joe McPhee holds that latter distinction thanks to Werner X Uehlinger and the Hat Hut imprint. Up to 1975, McPhee had been dividing his time between occasional teaching engagements at Vassar College and a day gig at a factory in his hometown of Poughkeepsie, NY, fitting music into the time between and off from both. The Willisau Concert, Uehlinger’s second release on his fledgling label, documents an eponymous Swiss leg of a European tour undertaken by McPhee and his colleague John Synder in the fall of that year. South African drummer Makaya Ntshoko joined the group, but the chemistry between the three players was apparently off leading to a truncating of the tour soon after.

Comprising four McPhee compositions in lengthy forms, the original album tests the limits of vinyl duration. “Touchstone” is a volatile duet for drums and tenor with Ntshoko forcefully framing the ensuing interplay at start and finish with solo features. That dominance in approach may be in part what McPhee hints at in later reflections of the incongruous fit between sensibilities, but the piece is bursting with action as it moves from free form raucous blowing to a more measured and melodic conclusion. Early on, McPhee resorts to shouts and screams, his horn momentarily insufficient in voicing an appropriate amount of ecstatic release. “Voices” brings Snyder’s analog synthesizer and looped voice into play in a layering of low monastic drones that joins legato tenor phrases that are at once raw and delicate. The entrance of Ntshoko’s flexing tidal beats changes the tenor of the piece drastically, but they are sporadic and at times almost subsumed by the swirling electronic textures that pour forth from Snyder’s consoles.  

“Bahamian Folk Song”, a piece composed in honor of McPhee’s family ancestry opens from a place of diffusion. Audience whoops and hollers overlap with a synthetic rhythm by Snyder augmented by Ntshoko’s drum kit. McPhee’s explores a chirruping and soulful calypso motif, but once again the pervasive electronic elements of the music threaten repeatedly to overwhelm the acoustic ones. “Harriet” also honors heritage in an ode to the activist answering to the surname Tubman. McPhee’s tenor traces a fine-grained line as Snyder eases up on the volume and density of his contributions. The result still feels subtractive rather than additive in sustaining a mood of reflective reverence and Ntshoko’s disjointed press rolls carry the air of a player somewhat uncertain as to his role. The Corbett vs. Dempsey reissue duplicates the original LP gatefold packaging down to the calligraphic script describing concert particulars. Even more valuable is a bonus version of “God Bless the Child” ripe with resplendent McPhee tenor. Ultimately a mixed bag, the album is still an important entry in the leader’s near-half century as a recording artist.

Derek Taylor

[ozkar-krapo]

Joe McPHEE

"The Willisau Concert"

(LP. Hat Hut rcds. 1976 / rec. 1975) [US]

[soundgrammar]

Listen/purchase: The Willisau Concert, Pt. 2 by CECIL TAYLOR PIANO SOLO

[grad503-15-bianca]

Wk 8 - Generating Content

Introduction/Editorial

Annik Troxler is a Swiss graphic designer born in 1979 in Willisau. She studied graphic design at the ECAL in Lausanne; now she works in the cultural field and teaches at the Basel School of Design. She is known for her eye-catching and playful poster designs. While pop art, constructivism, cubism, and minimalism have all influenced Troxler’s work, she also has an interest in Dutch design and typography. Since 2008 she has lectured and taught workshops in Europe and abroad and she has won several prizes around the world.

The Willisau Jazz Festival is something of a Troxler family legacy. Her father Niklaus Troxler first began holding concerts in 1966, and also designed the posters for the festival for 35 years before handing over to his daughter. Having inherited the task of designing the festival’s posters, Troxler’s tenure has seen a marked change in style from that of her father, with a more restrained approach to color choice, greater use of space, and tighter constructions. The result is just as energetic. She has also occasionally worked with her sister, illustrator Paula Troxler, on the posters.

Reference

https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/annik-troxlers-jazz-posters-are-as-wild-as-a-charlie-parker-solo/ 

https://en.typomania.ru/2019/speakers-2019/annik-troxler/

[grad503pimlapatt]

Annik Troxler works

posters for the ‘willisau jazz festival’ (together with paula troxler) Left: 2013  Right: 2011

Left: 2014 calendar Right: illusions performance of tabea martin & matthias mooij, poster, 2013

Left: the lecture ‘design and compose’ at the basel school of design, poster, 2009 Right: lecture at the basel school of design, poster 2008

Left: intimities solo concerts at the jazz festival willisau, poster, 2008 Right: interne lecture at the basel school of design, poster, 2008

Left: intimities solo concerts at the jazz festival willisau, poster, 2007 Right: lectures from the east at the basel school of design, poster, 2009

Invitations for a series of lectures at the basel school of design, 2007

[jazzfunkdid]

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWNBrilu4v4)

ECM Records ‎– 829 158-2 ‎– Concert recording, June 1979, Willisau, Switzerland. Jack DeJohnette New Directions ‎– In Europe. Bass – Eddie Gomez. Drums, Piano – Jack DeJohnette. Guitar, Mandolin – John Abercrombie. Trumpet – Lester Bowie.

[podilatokafe]

Trio Heinz Herbert: The Willisau Concert Trio Heinz Herbert: The Willisau Concert jazz review by John Sharpe, published on October 24, 2017. Find thousands reviews at All About Jazz! Πηγή: Trio Heinz Herbert: The Willisau Concert

[zombiemusica]

Contagiemonos con la nueva música de Heinz Herbert – The Willisau Concert (2017)

[budaallmusic]

Joe McPhee Featuring John Snyder And Makaya Ntshoko ‎– The Willisau Concert #hathut 1976 Drums – #MakayaNtshoko Synthesizer, Voice – #JohnSnyder Tenor Saxophone, Soprano Saxophone, Mixed By – #JoeMcPhee

[diyeipetea]

HDO 264. Cuatro tríos. Duot & Andy Moor, Trio Heinz Hebert, Risser - Duboc - Perraud, GRID [Podcast]

HDO 264. Cuatro tríos. Duot & Andy Moor, Trio Heinz Hebert, Risser – Duboc – Perraud, GRID [Podcast]

En la entrega 264 de HDO del 21 de abril de 2017, suenan cuatro grabaciones en formato de trío. Food (Repetidor, 2017) de Duot (Albert Cirera – Ramòn Prats) & Andy Moor; The Willisau Concert (Intakt, 2017) del Trio Heinz Hebert (Dominic Landolt, Ramon Landolt, Mario Hänni); En Corps Generation (Dark Tree, 2017) de Eve Risser, Benjamin Duboc, Edward Perraud; GRID (NNA, 2017) de Matt Nelson, Tim…

[dustedmagazine]

Derek Taylor 2020: We’re Still Here

That’s about the best that can be said for a year that pulled out nearly every stop in a surging sea change to calamity, adversity and tragedy. The number of people lost to a pandemic that now stands steadfast as a monument to the true meaning of American Exceptionalism as the epitome of empathy-eradicating self-interest is enough to negate even the noblest efforts at laughing to keep from crying. Musicians and music persisted though, even in a severely altered performance landscape of shuttered venues and virtual concerts.  And recorded offerings new and archival remained plentiful. 

When so much about the present feels like a sprint backwards, societally, environmentally and across multiple other measures, music reliably endures as a means for finding both meaning and footing in the world. What follows are 20 capsule vignettes describing selections from the sea of albums circulated this year that kept me afloat, followed by 25 more in list form that did the same. Thank you for reading and thanks for sticking with us.

Paul Desmond — The Complete 1975 Toronto Recordings (Mosaic)

Given the magnitude of hardship this year’s wrought on living musicians, it may appear a bit perverse to lead this list with a dead one. Even so, this immersive set’s become an old reliable when it comes to achieving aurally-sourced solace. Desmond, the arch and affluent altoist, leaning into a Canadian club residency with ace sidemen while making good on his gentleman’s agreement with absent Dave Brubeck to abstain from piano accompaniment. The leader’s lady-killer instincts are assiduously evident in the amorously-oriented song choices as his dulcet, tranquilizing tone seduces and delights, night after night.

Chris Dingman — Peace (Inner Arts)

An intensely personal project where abundancy of content arose not out of ambition but rather necessity and is made all the more affecting for it. Dingman designed and played the nearly six hours of solo vibraphone music on this set for his hospice-sequestered father with sole purpose of providing comfort and calm. Reflection after his parent’s passing moved him to release it into the world with the hope that it could do the same for others. Intention accomplished.

 Joe McPhee — Black Is the Color (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

It’s been a distressing year for nearly everyone, but particularly for McPhee, who lost his brother Charlie to illness. Even amidst ongoing emotional tumult, his fecundity felt undiminished. AC/DC on the British OtoROKU label offers another entry with the English organ trio Decoy. Of Things Beyond Thule, Vol. 2 is a smashing CD sequel to its vinyl predecessor with Dave Rempis, Tomeka Reid, Brandon Lopez and Paal Nilssen-Love comprising the super group. A reissue of the seminal She Knows… with Scandinavian power trio The Thing on the Ezz-thetics label and Black is the Color compiling early concert material in surprisingly sharp fidelity from the Corbett vs. Dempsey imprint cover the archival end of things.

 Sonny Rollins — Rollins in Holland (Resonance)

The Saxophone Colossus holding court with Dutch compatriots in 1967. Most conspicuous is daredevil drummer Han Bennink, who even at this early stage straddles swing to European Free Jazz from behind his kit. Rollins shifts between comparatively pithy studio salvos and effusive concert excursions that once again cement his supremacy in the strenuous realm of long form improvisation. Seven decades as a musician makes for a bank vault-sized cache of bootlegs, but this one, refurbished and authorized remains something special.

 Stephen Riley — Friday the 13th (Steeplechase)

Like McPhee, Riley’s a perennial resident of my pantheon. This date realized a long-standing wish to hear him in the company of cornetist Kirk Knuffke backed by the freeing simplicity of bass and drums. Both men have aerated, instantly recognizable tones and pliancy in phrasing that provides practically endless possibilities in tandem. Riley’s also instrumental as featured guest on Pierre Dørge’s Bluu Afroo, a slightly preemptive Ruby Anniversary celebration of guitarist’s multinational New Jungle Orchestra.

 Sam Rivers — Ricochet & Braids (No Business)

The auspicious launch of a Sam Rivers archival series last year was among the Lithuanian No Business label’s greatest achievements. Two more seminal entries came down the pike in 2020: Ricochet featuring Dave Holland and Barry Altschul of particularly fine vintage, and Braids spotlighting another pivotal Rivers ensemble in Hamburg with low brass wizard Joe Daley. There are four more to go, which should target the end of 2022 for the series’ completion.

 James Brandon Lewis — Live at Willisau & Molecular (Intakt)

Lewis is the type of compelling artist tapped for accolades like Down Beat’s Rising Star award, despite having been active as an accomplished improviser for over a decade. Delayed exposure is common collateral to a career path in improvised music though, and the saxophonist hasn’t let slow-to-cotton critics slow him down a bit. A deal inked with the Swiss Intakt imprint has so far yielded Live at Willsau, which finds him in fiery duo with Chad Taylor, and Molecular, a studio venture with an all-star quartet that will hopefully become a working band again in 2021.

 Susan Alcorn — Pedernal (Relative Pitch)

Pedal steel may feel like a nascent voice in improvised music, but in actuality Susan Alcorn and her peers have been plying it as a viable vehicle for some time. While Pedernal is somewhat perplexingly her first album as clear-cut leader, impediments to an earlier debut seem inconsequential given the ample amount of thought and design evident in the end product. Strings wielded by Michael Formanek, Mary Halvorson and Mark Feldman weave with the wide gamut of Alcorn’s aqueous sonorities across intricate pieces further stamped by Ryan Sawyer’s peripatetic drums. The results are at once daring and distinguished.

 John Scofield — Swallow Tales (ECM)

ECM has an enviably accomplished record when it comes to matching the austerity and formality of its sound design to artists’ objectives. Case in point this stark, but not standoffish trio set that’s as much (electric) bassist Steve Swallow’s offspring as it is Scofield’s. Drummer Stewart is the third point in the triangle, but he sagely defers to his elders, leaving them to a dance of differently gauged strings that expertly balances motion and space.

 Corbett vs. Dempsey

John Corbett is emblematic of that rare breed of music monomaniac who balances obsessiveness with altruistic generosity. He’s personally responsible for bringing dozens of rare and classic recordings back into circulation, first through the fondly remembered Unheard Music Series and more recently via the CvD concern. This year, another stack was added to that sum with Milford Graves & Don Pullen’s The Complete Yale Concert 1966 (including the rarified Nommo), Alexander von Schlippenbach’s Three Nails Left, Tetterettet by the ICP Tentet, Peter Kowald’s self-titled FMP debut as a leader and the madcap New Acoustic Swing Duo from Willem Breuker and Han Bennink as standouts.

 Whit Boyd Combo — Party Girls & Dracula (the Dirty Old Man) (Modern Harmonic)

Vintage skin flick soundtracks have rarely if ever received an even-handed shake in terms of relative artistic merits. Tarred with the same smut brush as the visuals they were constructed to accompany, they’re routinely viewed as just as disposable. The Whit Boyd Combo doesn’t exactly dispel this dictum, but it does lay down some funky and at times refreshingly fractious freewheeling horns over organ, bass, and drums driven beats on this late-60s session tape excavated by the folks at Modern Harmonic. The companion Dracula (the Dirty Old Man) isn’t quite on par, but it’s still a solid vessel for competently crafted fossilized grooves.  

 Robbie Basho — Songs of the Avatars (Tompkins Square)

Real Gone Music whet the appetite earlier this year with the release of Songs of the Great Mystery, a “lost session” from Basho’s tenure at the Vanguard label. Songs of the Avatars ups the ante substantially by granting outsider access to a six-hour survey of the dearly departed fingerstyle guitarist’s personal tape trove. The aural riches are ample and include Basho exploring familiar proclivities (Indian, Native American and Japanese interpolations) alongside unexpected new ones (ballet and cantata) with passion and conviction to burn along the way.

 Jimi Hendrix — Live in Maui (Experience Hendrix)

Posthumous Hendrix is a seemingly inexhaustible resource as each year repackaged and repurposed treasures are released into the marketplace. Fortunately, familial heirs are the ones doing the sowing and this lavish set documenting musical and extra-musical particulars of the icon’s reluctant conscription into cosmic hippie scam does right by him. Given the windswept conditions near the Haleakala Crater it’s a minor miracle that he, Billy Cox and Mitch Mitchell mesh as well as they do, and while the footage included can be frustrating in its fragmentary presentation, it’s still a thrill to see and hear them jamming in amiable and ebullient form.

 Joe Maneri, Udi Hrant & Friends — The Cleopatra Record (Canary)

Details on this one could easily serve as grist for a credible short film screenplay with perhaps Jim Jarmusch directing. Brooklyn, 1963: A group of marginalized ethnic musicians relegated to playing wedding gigs gets conscripted for an afternoon recording session. The cheaply packaged and provincially distributed results are destined for the anonymity of dime store cut out bins. Except that the band includes two geniuses: Joe Maneri, who would go on to become a master microtonal improviser/composer and Udi Hrant Kenkulian, one of most revered modern doyens of the Turkish oud. Available over at Bandcamp for a pittance.

 Ayalew Mesfin — Good Aderegechegn, Che Belew and Tewedije Limut (Now Again)

Adding up Buda Musique’s 30-volume Ethiopiques series and a host of other more modest enterprises, it’s obvious that there’s never been more access to vintage Ethiopian music than now. This trilogy of discs from the Now Again label covering vocalist/keyboardist/bandleader Ayalew Mesfin’s catalog restores one of the last untapped reservoirs to circulation. Tight horns, choppy, fuzz and wah-wah drenched guitars and chugging bass fuel dance floor burners while Mesfin’s pipes work memorable magic on a string of melancholic, melismatic ballads.

 Kent & Modern Records Blues into the 60s, Vol. 1 & 2 (Ace)

Ace’s appellation as a music label of enviable reach and import has never been an erroneous assignation. This pair of compilations investigates the urban, but far from urbane, blues scene surrounding Los Angeles as documented by the Kent label in the 1960s. Comparatively longer-in-tooth legends like T-Bone Walker and Big Jay McNeely jockey with younger, fame hungry artists like Larry Davis and Little Joe Blue in negotiating a West Coast argot that’s heavy on electricity channeled through guitars and organs. McNeely’s ripping “Blues in G Minor” is one of several snarling sonic wolves in non-descript sheep’s titling.

 V/A — A Stranger I May Be: Savoy Gospel 1954-1986 (Honest Jons)

This astutely-sequenced set stands out in the particularly plentiful playing field of this year’s gospel reissues. The mighty Savoy label started out as a jazz venture before branching out into other African American musical idioms. The compilers at Honest Jons parse the program chronologically across three-discs and leave the heavy-lifting of context and artists biography to a lengthy essay. Choirs, ensembles, bands, and moonlighting R&B singers all make appearances directing their talents to devotional and invocational celebrations of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

 Sun Ra

One of the highlight roundtables at Dusted this year was a Listening Post ruminating on the Sun Ra Arkesta with and sans Ra on the occasion of the band’s new release Swirling. I got to play the (hopefully uncharacteristic) part of curmudgeon in those exchanges principally because while I respect the ensemble’s longevity absent their lodestar leader, there’s still an explicit void extant that tends to eclipse my actual interest. The Ra reissue docket for 2020, which included excellent editions of Celestial Love and A Fireside Chat with Lucifer from Modern Harmonic, When Angels Speak of Love on Cosmic Myth, Heliocentric Worlds, Vols. 1 and 2 from Ezz-thetics, and Strut’s Egypt 1971, which collects Dark Myth Equation Visitation, Nidhamu and Horizon alongside a bevy of contemporaneous unreleased recordings, only bolstered the bias. 

 Fresh Sound Records

Still the standard for thoughtfully and lavishly curated jazz reissues, Barcelona-based Fresh Sound kept commensurately prolific pace throughout the year. Gary Peacock - The Beginnings surveys the recently deceased bassist’s early work as a versatile California-stationed sideman. Remembering does similar service to rare concert recordings by Belgian guitarist Rene Thomas while The Complete 1961 Milano Sessions offers truth in advertising by compiling woodwind savant Buddy Collette’s sojourn on Italian shores with (mostly) indigenous sidemen.

 V/A — Sumer is Icumenin (Grapefruit)

An overdue sequel to Dust on the Nettles (2015), which apparently commands on princely sums on Discogs these days, this set encompasses 4+ hours of cherry-picked vintage British freak folk. Second helpings from stalwarts of the style such as Comus, Steeleye Span and Fairport Convention join Albion offerings from obscurants like Vulcan’s Hammer, Mr. Fox and Oberon in celebrating the weird crossroads of ancient Britannic and 1960s counterculture influences. The cant is more to The Wicker Man side of the spectrum with Magnet’s bucolic canticle “Corn Rigs” the ringer in that regard.

Twenty-five more in mostly stochastic order:

Aruán Ortiz - Inside Rhythmic Falls (Intakt)

Brandon Seabrook/Cooper-Moore/Gerald Cleaver — Exultations (Astral Spirits)

Cecil Taylor & Tony Oxley — Birdland, Neuberg 2011 (Fundacja Sluchaj)

Horace Tapscott w/ the Pan Afrikan Peoples Arkestra — Ancestral Echoes: The Covina Sessions, 1976 (Dark Tree)

Damon Smith — Whatever is Not Stone is Light (Balance Point Acoustics)

Frank Lowe & Rashied Ali — Duo Exchange: Complete Sessions (Survival)

Dudu Pukwana — and the “Spears” (Matsuli Music)

Mary Halvorson’s Code Girl — Artlessly Falling (Firehouse 12)

Burton Greene — Peace Beyond Conflict (Birdwatcher)

Albert Ayler — Trio 1964: Prophecy Revisited (Ezz-thetics)

JD Allen — Toys/Die Dreaming (Savant)

Charles Mingus — At Bremen 1964 and 1975 (Sunnyside)

The Warriors of the Wonderful Sound — Soundpath (Clean Feed)

Kidd Jordan/Joel Futterman/Alvin Fielder — Spirits (Silkheart)

Roland Haynes — 2nd Wave (Black Jazz)

Quin Kirchner — The Shadows and the Light (Astral Spirits)

Thelonious Monk — Palo Alto (Universal/Impulse)

Black Unity Trio — Al-Fatihah (Salaam Records/Gotta Groove)

Gary Smulyan — Our Contrafacts (Steeplechase)

Joni Mitchell — Archives Vol. 1: The Early Years (1963-1967 (Rhino)

Elder Charles Beck — Your Man of Faith (Gospel Friend)

Sarhabil Ahmed — King of Sudanese Jazz (Habibi Funk)

V/A – The Right to Rock: The Mexicano and Chicano Rock ‘n’ Roll Rebellion 1955-1963, Episodio Uno (Bear Family)

V/A – Hillbillies in Hell: Country Music’s Tormented Testament (1952-1974) ~ Revelations (The Omni Recording Corporation)

V/A — The Harry Smith B-Sides (Dust to Digital)

[dustedmagazine]

Steve Lacy Quintet – Stamps (Corbett vs. Dempsey/Hat Hut)

The superlative “classic” is scrupulously assigned to a select number of historic quintets in jazz. Miles Davis’ pivotal bands with John Coltrane and Wayne Shorter as well as Coltrane’s game-changing groups with Eric Dolphy and Pharoah Sanders represent four of the most readily referenced examples in the modern iterations of the idiom. A credible case can be cobbled for the Steve Lacy group gracing Stamps as well. The expatriate composer/soprano saxophonist had already tillered the ensemble for a handful of years when the two concert recordings that comprise the double-album were released as his 1979 debut on the Swiss Hat Hut label.

The band was an exceptional aggregate of talent and scope from its genesis. Lacy drew abuse that inexplicably still endures today for including his spouse Irene Aebi, a cellist and self-styled vocalist whose sing-song delivery frequently forewent strict pitch adherence for brio and exuberance.  Saxophonist Steve Potts was an easier sell, distinctive and soulful with both alto and soprano and voicing a rich vernacular that could both complement and contrast the sometimes more measured and meticulous vocabulary of his employer. Bassist Kent Carter brought a deep classical background and an elegant artistry with bow while Oliver Johnson conjured equal parts color and energy on drums.

Corbett vs. Dempsey does the package lavish justice, duplicating the gatefold design and original calligraphic font along with interior reproductions of action photos from the concerts. The first disc documents a late-summer of 1977 hit at the Willisau Jazz Festival with a bonus track added while the second preserves a Parisian club date from six months later. The set lists are stacked with lengthy renditions of Lacy tunes of the time, starting with the extended theatrical tone poem “Existence”, which opens with the grand existentialist gesture of invocatory gong and Aebi’s spoken-sung lyrics amidst spiraling horns and arco bass drone.

The other pieces are largely structured in more familiar Lacy fashion with tightly wound and knotted motivic patterns expanding into freer solo and ensemble statements, by turns prickly and buoyant. The stubborn influence of Thelonious Monk on Lacy is all over these originals in the slippery shuffle rhythms and trapdoor twists. Carter and Iebi scrape several layers of rosin from their strings with concentrated sawing on the acerbic “Ire” prefacing the violence and reconciliation of dueling sopranos by Potts and Lacy. “The Dumps” and the previously unreleased “Follies” shift from jaunty prancing earworms into churning abstraction and back in transitions that are at times jarring and disorienting, but always wholly intentional.

From the Parisian hit, the comparatively terse title tune embodies perhaps the best example of Lacy’s ability to contrast punishing, compacting repetition with soaring, optimistic elegance as he and Potts aim for the cloudless heavens above a roiling groundswell of drums and strings.”Duckles” features a blast of mic distortion and Lacy’s debut on Japanese bird whistle, each that feel wholly in spirit with the sharp angles and fractious, rambunctious flavor of the piece. Potts’ alto absolutely owns “Wickets” in a solo that’s near perfection in terms of emotive effulgence and emphatic impact. The composer gladly cedes the win and goes for a different direction in his subsequently limpid and systematic soprano statement.

Lacy would treat the quintet as adjustable template in ensuing years, adding and subtracting players and eventually steering the band into more conventionally structured straits. Potts remained a reliable foil with Jean Jacques Avenel and John Betsch assuming the bass and drums chairs in place of Carter and Johnson. Iebi remained a semi-regular too, attracting ill-considered opprobrium and shrugging it off in equal measure. Those later examples were often excellent, but there’s something unequivocally exceptional in hearing the original outfit holding eloquent and ecstatic court in its incandescent prime.

Derek Taylor