Although recorded early in the career of Muhal Richard Abrams, this brilliant LP shows the pianist/composer turning away from the stock jazz and studio work of earlier years -- to develop into one of the richest talents to rise from the Chicago avant underground of the 60s! At the time of the recording, Abrams was the president of the recently-founded AACM -- and for the session, he's surrounded himself with some of the best young talents from Chicago, including Thurman Barker, Anthony Braxton, Leroy Jenkins, and Maurice McIntyre -- all of whom help to create a complicated web of colors, shapes, and sounds, that prove that the youthful energy of the underground scene was more than capable of crafting sophisticated modernist documents. The album features three long works -- "Levels & Degrees Of Light", "The Bird Song", and "My Thoughts Are My Future". |