One Of TAS' Ten Best Jazz Albums of 2020!
Entirely Previously Unissued Studio Recordings On Double LP!Strictly Limited To 665 Hand-Numbered Copies!
Mastered From The Original Tape, Cut by Sterling Sound's Steve Fallone & Pressed at QRP!
This item not eligible for any further discount offers!
Trumpeter Dixon and pianist Taylor, friends going back to their Truman-era school days, associated copiously in nearly every artistic fashionexcept making music together. Duets is their only meeting in studio apart from both artists appearing on Taylor's 1966 landmark Blue Note LP Conquistador. In 1992 they made the briefest summer festival tour to Italy and France, budgeting in two additional days for this recording session. That musical output was prepared for a release that was shelved for more than a quarter century and now comes out as a posthumous release in tribute to both giants. The initiative to release this music began with the Bill Dixon Trust and was approved by Taylor in his final years. Now, a wider public will hear music that they both prized, documenting the extraordinary relationship between their musicalities.
Duets is a remarkable and unique item in the extensive catalogs of both men's recordings. Fans familiar with Dixon and Taylor's distinctive styles will approach with curious uncertainty: How could it possibly work to blend styles of Joyce and Hemingway? Pollock and Kline? Nevelson and Brancusi? Bill Dixon and Cecil Taylor share a fundamental fiber of taste and reaction as the basis for their interaction. The complementary nature of Duets makes the case thoroughly that the project stands apart not just from the numerous duet projects of both instrumentalists, but from the wide field of improvised duets in this sector of the music.
Strictly limited to 665 copies worldwide, this 2-LP set has been scrupulously mastered from the original tape, preserving both the high gloss and the brutal physicality of the recording. Plates cut by Sterling Sound's Grammy®-winning mastering master Steve Fallone have been pressed into virgin vinyl at QRP, and wrapped in a hand-numbered Old Style Tip-On® gatefold jacket that Stoughton has perfected. The package also includes a new contextualizing essay by historian Ben Young, hitherto-unpublished photographs from the collaboration, and artifacts reproduced from the original release plans. Bill Dixon conceived this as a deluxe digital release; Triple Point is honored to bring Duets to vinyl reality in the 21st Century.
"Listening to abstract music isn't for everybody. But for those who go with flow of freely improvised "jazz" - performed with no written score and no rehearsal and absent the familiar touchstones of premeditated melody, harmony, and rhythm - this previous unissued meeting of two avant-garde giants is audio manna from heaven. Their (Taylor & Dixon) very different stylistic approaches are pivotal to the pleasures of immersive listening to these 11 numbered pieces across two virgin vinyl LPs. Comparison to abstract impressionist painting is appropriate, but the music's constant movement evokes even more the spontaneous synchronicity of huge swells in the ocean - Dixon's sustaned notes, legato lines, and echoing electronic effects, recessed deep in the mix - and seemingly random sparkles of light on the surface - Taylor's jittery, splashing notes, altogether mesmerizing and sublime." - Derk Richardson, The Absolute Sound, February 2020
Features:• Hand-Numbered, Limited Edition
• Strictly Limited to Only 665 Copies
• Double LP
• Entirely previously unissued studio recordings
• Scrupulously mastered from the original tape
• Plates cut by Sterling Sound's Steve Fallone
• Pressed on virgin vinyl at QRP
• Stoughton Old Style Tip-On gatefold jacket
• Previously unpublished photos
• New essay by Ben Young
• Artifacts reproduced from the original release plans
Musicians:
Bill Dixon, trumpet
Cecil Taylor, piano
Selections:
Side A:
1. Piece One
2. Piece Two
Side B:
1. Piece Three
2. Piece Four
Side C:
1. Piece Five
2. Piece Six
3. Piece Seven
Side D:
1. Piece Eight
2. Piece Nine
3. Piece Ten
4. Piece Eleven
