Labyrinths

by Stephen Cook Taken from a 1987 solo date at Quebec's venerable Festival Musique Actuelle, Labyrinths finds avant garde jazz pianist Marilyn Crispell balancing Cecil Taylor's cataclysmic and staunchly free piano style with her own melodic and spacious take on free improvisation. The connection to Taylor is made clear on the dedication piece "Au Chanteur Qui Danse (For Cecil Taylor)" and on "Encore," both of which feature the kind of rhythmically muscular piano runs Taylor favored. Other Taylor touches include the frantic, high-note excursions found on "Labyrinths" and the emphatic, slammed-down piano chords employed throughout the set. Crispell, though, finds her own ground with a seamless mix of introspectively romantic phrasing and charged improvisation; "Still Womb of Light (For Ann Sheldon)" exemplifies this best, with its melancholic buildup and subsequent rhythmic "roughhousing" of the once delicate themes. Her keen way with cover material is also on display, as evidenced by the expert blending of major and minor chords on "You Don't Know What Love Is" and Coltrane's "After the Rain"; Crispell's abiding love of Coltrane is further expressed by excellent readings of the tenor saxophonist's "Lasy Bird" and Over the Rainbow." One of the few solo releases from this highly original composer and improviser, Labyrinths provides a great introduction to Marilyn Crispell's catalogue.