29 January 2009

Tom Cora and Sam Bennett’s "Third Person" joinin’ Steve Lacy - Live at The Knitting Factory 1992 january the 4th


Excerpt from: New York Times’ article “Sounds Around Town”, By Jon Pareles , Published: January 3, 1992

Steve Lacy's Sax
Steve Lacy, the Knitting Factory, 47 East Houston Street, at Mulberry Street, Manhattan, (212) 219-3055. The soprano saxophonist Steve Lacy is to perform in two settings. Tomorrow at 9 P.M., he joins Samm Bennett on percussion and Tom Cora on cello as part of Third Person, a continuing series of collaborations. Tickets are $10.

Excerpt from: Point of Departure an online music journal
Issue 20 - December 2008 - What's New?: The PoD Roundtable

…In teaching and clinics, he spoke fairly negatively about the kind of free improvisation that doesn’t have clearly stated, shared constraints on form or material. He talked about free playing autobiographically as a period of research in the past that was of its time (mid- to late 1960s, Italy and Argentina, The Forest and the Zoo) and yielded some useful results, but was over and done with. He explained that it was useful in that it helped him try out material, weed out unwanted things, and it led to his own much more structured compositions with guided improvisation. He seemed to have very strong guidelines in mind about improvisation, even ostensibly free, open-ended improvisation. When I played in his Precipitation Suite with him and the Boston-based Jazz Composers Alliance he was very definite about what he wanted me to do in an improvised duet, and gave similar instructions for larger group improvisations. And the few other times I got to perform with him, we played 12-bar blues (“Misterioso”, or “Baghdad Blues” with a short, conducted, programmatic group sound improvisation). These glimpses of working with Steve matched stories I heard from Lee Konitz about their playing “free” together, and about his interactions with Third Person (Tom Cora and Samm Bennett) and perhaps ROVA. Steve seemed to prefer working with his own material, or with pretty strictly controlled structures for improvisation, in his later years. When he performed in off-campus clubs or galleries with students while teaching in Boston, they played largely Monk tunes, sticking to the forms and changes, or (much less often) his songs. A brief bio excerpt about Third Person Cora was also a member of the improvising trio Third Person, formed in 1990 as a live collaboration with percussionist Samm Bennett and a "third person" who changed from concert to concert. Two CDs of some of their performances were released, The Bends in 1991 (with "third persons" Don Byron, George Cartwright, Chris Cochrane, Nic Collins, Catherine Jauniaux, Myra Melford, Zeena Parkins, and Marc Ribot) and Luck Water in 1995 (with "third person" Kazutoki Umezu).

Translated from Italian Interview
by Fabrizio Gilardino
appeared on Musiche Year VI n. 1 (14) 1993

• What kind of group du You tink Third Person is? The answer is in the name. It sound almos like a slogan, and in some way it is one. The idea was born when Samm and me were doing a lot of concerts togheter, every time inviting a new “third person”. So wu found the name of the band about after two years of plyin that way. We played two times with George Lewis, teo eith Butch Morris,, once with George Cartwright, and finally we decided that it was a very nice way of playin, We were searching for a band’s name and naturally thought to “Third Person . I think it’s a good one in itself and almost describes well what we are doing.
• What’s the third person role, playin’ with You’ The thids persons are our victims. It greatly depends on who is the third person: some people have a stronger musical personality than others…What Tom and me are playin isnt’ exactly what You would expect from in a totally improvised musical situation, expecially the use we made of some rhythms and the song-form.

A Tom Cora discography link: www.wnur.org/jazz/artists/cora.tom/discog.html

I can add that from this magical encounter sorted out an astonishing music, almost Lacy’s music but with the addiction of two marvellous musicians and free improvisers. As sometimes happens with such musical minds it seems they have played togheter for years since the trio is playin for a common goal: musical beauty.


Tom Cora and Sam Bennett’s Third Person joinin’Steve Lacy
Knitting Factory 1992 january the 4th


Steve Lacy soprano sax

Tom Cora cello

Samm Bennett drums


1. Name (Lacy) 8:29

2. Rudders (Cora) 5:39

3. Cliches (Lacy) 8:32
4.
The Wane
(Lacy) 9:10

5. Bone (Lacy) 6:09

6. untitled (likely free improv) 4:16

Note that in the note pad the date enclosed to the files the date is wrong,
Since I’ve taken this one from DIME someone invererted month with day,
A
s You Well know in English dating is Y/M/D so here is the correct one confirmed by the New York Times article datet.

Here the NEW LINKS to this post:
http://inconstantsol.blogspot.com/2010/05/steve-lacy-1992-new-york-19920401-trio.html

26 comments:

Tantris said...

Hats off to all of you who are continuing with this great blog. Some great posts in the last few days - this one looks a real treat.

Good luck and best wishes,

Tantris

LYM said...

@tantris
THANkS a lot for the appreciation!

Good Luck to You.

:-) LYM

Unknown said...

Any Steve Lacy is good Steve Lacy thanks .

Anonymous said...

This one looks REALLY interesting. Lacy and Tom Cora, wow.

I also have to say that Lacy photo at the top of the post is really something.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for running this superb site. Having old vinyl stuff back is great, but unreleased material like this Lacy is beyond price. The cello and unusual drumming make this sound unlike other Lacy trio recordings, but totally convincing. Keep going!

Anonymous said...

thank you for the continuing efforts!
and for selecting rare audio bits of uncommon groupings - such as this one with tom cora and steve lacy. may their spirit live on - and be carried on by all of you on this blog. you spread the music!

all the best from
Owombat

LYM said...

@anyone here
the only "High and Mighty" I'm interested in is:

COLEMAN HAWKINS, "THE HIGH AND MIGHTY HAWK", Decca (1958)

SEE YOU :-) LYM

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much - a valuable post!

dee es said...

This is a great concert! Thanks for posting it.

8mmbolex said...

holy cow. this isn't just a post, it is a major event.
what a gorgeous AND historic recording. i am overcome with gratitude, both for the music and your redoubled efforts in the face of change.

KungFuTrumpet said...

double thumbs up!

plato said...

The infinitely varied hypnotic lines of Steve Lacy are always awesome. Thanks for this.
BTW, the title of this post seems to be wrong. According to the included info file, this concert was on 1 april 1992.

LYM said...

@plato and everyone here
thanks to all for the appreciation, the date in the file infos is wrong, read my note on bottom of post. I've found the error writing the comments but I had uploded the files yet.
So the right date is that reported on my post, as confirmed by the New York Times review.

SEE YOU :-) LYM

it was the blue that got me said...

Wow, thanks for posting this! I always appreciate the all-too-rare opportunity to hear Tom Cora...

Anonymous said...

a late thanks from me, LYM!

this is a lot of fun, and while i am fond of tom cora, too, i requested one of the oop knitfac records by 'third person', which immediately got fulfilled in the links. for the post, see here:

tinyurl.com/luckywater

cheers

Spring Day said...

Is it just a temporary bug at mediafire, or is it true, that the second link out of these three is broken? Very sad...

LYM said...

@Spring Day
really don't know what's the problem, no one till now ever noticed problems with this links. Now I can't try by myself If the problem persists be patient and in the next days I'll re-up the whole concert with new links.
I apologize for the trouble!

SEE YOU. :-) LYM

Spring Day said...

Ah, it worked now! Wonderful!

intempestif said...

Hi, i managed to download parts 1 & 2 and they are great, but there is a problem with part 3, it just doesnt download. thanks

intempestif said...

I"M SORRY, IT WAS A TEMPORARY PROBLEM. THE DOWNLOAD JUST STARTED.

Jean K said...

Wonderful music - thank you!

JC said...

This did look very interesting but sadly the links are gone. This is the only one I noticed so far with missing links. Thanks for this great blog.

LYM said...

Hi to everyone here!!!
I' ve tried myself and the Lacy_Cora links are OK try again

SEE YOU

LYM

ClaudeS said...

sorry but the mediafire links don't fonction anymore (with free account)

Anonymous said...

would you be so kind as to post this again???!?!?!?it looks amazing!!!
thanks so much!

Anonymous said...

would you please please(please) post this album again? the links seem to be missing/deleted? thanks so much for posting all the great music!awsome site!