| Intentions is the first CD by a trio with saxophonist John Butcher, violinist Phil Durrant, and cellist Peggy Lee. This is truly a cross-cultural collaboration in the best sense of the term--Butcher and Durrant hail from London, England, and Lee is a resident of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
According to journalist Bill Shoemaker, "Intentions appears at an interesting juncture in the evolution of improvised music, an art form uneasy with the disciplines it has spawned. It's a complicated scene, to use a Steve Lacyism. Within this polemic, John Butcher, Phil Durrant, and Peggy Lee have staked out an unequivocal middle ground, where a few guidelines can create an atmosphere in which the unintended flourishes. And it does on this recording."
In Pulse magazine, journalist Art Lange says the following about Intentions, "Butcher devises his own delicately subtle techniques, and combines them with the varied string sonorities (harmonics, bow tapping, microtones, etc.) Durrant and Lee create in a tangled, texturally dense counterpoint that seems to be reconfigured phrase by phrase. When intuitive intentions replace predetermined forms, the results are more surprising than logical; the ensemble's interaction offers intensity via quick, jolting, often pointillist details that scrape with friction or fit together into an abstract mosaic, reshaping the sound mass with every new contribution."
This release features an 8-page booklet with notes by the noted journalist Bill Shoemaker and art by the underrated Mary Vernon. |