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CD
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RITI 010CD
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"Guitarist Joe Morris, bassist John Voigt, and trombonist Tom Plesk, all long time associates of the late, legendary, Boston-based multi-instrumentalist, biochemist, and composer Lowell Skinner Davidson here perform their interpretations of his graphic compositions. This is beautiful and challenging music from scores created by one of the most idiosyncratic figures in the history of jazz. From the liner notes by Joe Morris: 'In the history of music and particularly in African-American music, Lowell Skinner Davidson, pianist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, scientist, musical visionary, is unique. Among his many references Lowell used his background as a biochemist (at Harvard) to describe his approach to music. He often declared that new sounds had the capacity to re-formulate the biochemistry of the brain. He made only one commercial recording (Lowell Davidson Trio, ESPdisk 1965) but left dozens of tapes of his post-1965 music -- vital work that is mostly lost. He also left behind hundreds of scores made in the 1980s, many done on 3x5 index cards. We used a few of these to make this recording. You can't read them like regular music, hence the 'graphic' in the title. They offer the player a specific guide toward randomness and imagination, a requirement that they be read as regular notation, but that the results find a balance between melodic line and pure sound. Those results occurred in all of LSD's music. Based on our collective years of experience working with Lowell we did our best to honor the compositions with our own interpretations.'"
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