Quintet for a Day

Built from the San Francisco area's thriving jazz community, What We Live is a collaborative trio that indulges a mix of free improvisation and structured avant-garde jazz. Bassist Lisle Ellis, saxophonist Lawrence Ochs (of Rova saxophone quartet fame), and Donald Robinson have seen two prior sessions released, the first tailored around their lean agility, and the second, What We Live Fo(u)r, using that leanness as the core for a variety of guests to expand the group into a quartet. With Quintet for a Day, they've expanded further, including free-jazz trumpet scion Wadada Leo Smith and Dave Douglas, one of the busiest and most creative trumpeters to have stepped forward in the 1990s. The quintet sculpts completely improvised music in discrete chunks lasting between one minute and a quarter hour. Smith and Douglas seem to guide the trio in busy antiphony, which is fascinating to hear. But Ochs, Robinson, and Ellis make a stunning inner circle to pop ideas off of, encasing the slippery harmonic formulations in a mixture of reedy texture and woodsy rhythm. What's striking at every listen here is how quickly the group pulls together their improvisations, building sturdy sonic units that have uncanny propulsion. --Andrew Bartlett

View More In Opera & Classical Vocal.

Or Browse Our Catalog.

LSO Live is delighted to renew its relationship with the magnificent choir Tenebrae, whose previous recordings on the label have included Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ and Handel's Messiah. As part of the 2011 City of London Festival, Tenebrae joi...

All our books are brand new. We ship worldwideIL VOLO. NOTTE MAGICA-TRIBUTE TO THE 3. INTERNATIONAL. MUSIC. ...

This live concert from 1997, a benefit for the Gay Men's Health Crisis, was Bernadette Peters's Carnegie Hall debut, and it's a joy. Peters has always had a special affinity for the music of Stephen Sondheim, and she spotlights some of his best so...

Cecila Bartoli with Jean-Yves Thibaudet on the piano recorded this live concert of "Sonatori de la Gioisa Marca" at the Teatro Olimpico, Vicenza, June 1988....

Available on CD for the first time, this live recording of the April 7, 1962 radio broadcast is newly remastered from the original sources. Soprano Leontyne Price sings the title role, with tenor Franco Corelli as Mario Cavaradossi and baritone Corne...

Recorded live at the Bavarian State Opera, March 2006 Booklet: (German, English) · storyline · libretto (German, English, Italian) · biographies In March 2006 in Munich, four artists were brought together thanks to a special constellation in two p...

Ancient Byzantine chants begin this 1,000-year journey from Constantinople to California, followed by musical encounters withCrusaders and Venetians, including Greek and Latin polyphony from Renaissance Crete. East meets West again at St. Sophia Cath...

The definitive recording of one of Berlioz's most popular works from the composer's greatest living interpreter. All the drama and the passion of Shakespeare's epic tale are conveyed in an astounding performance that has been greeted with universa...