Mar 4, 2025 1:29 PM
Changing of the Guard at Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra
On October 23, Ted Nash – having toured the world playing alto, soprano and tenor saxophone, clarinet and bass…
The sound of pianist Marilyn Crispell changed following a trip to a festival in Stockholm: “I heard them playing stuff that really, really touched me.”
(Photo: Claire Stefani)The performance is remarkably cohesive, traveling through several distinct phases, neither player ever seeming to catch the other off guard. This might be because Crispell and Sorey both are composers who improvise, and both are deeply in-tune with the creative and philosophical principles of the AACM, the drummer as a student (he wrote his master’s thesis on Mitchell) and the pianist as a peer.
“Tyshawn gives me a lot of space—in a way, a lot more space to introduce things than I’m used to,” she said, admiringly. “Often, someone will just put something down and I’ll react to it, which became a way of operating for me. And so, I suddenly felt that I was not in that kind of comfort zone anymore, that I had a different kind of responsibility for the direction of the music.”
On Wednesday, Crispell and saxophonist Joe Lovano’s Trio Tapestry, a group that made its debut earlier this year, head out on a string of European dates. Somewhere along the way, they’ll duck into the studio and make a second album.
Crispell describes the trio as “sort of a renaissance for me, to be invited to join that group and play his music that’s also challenging; a lot of stuff out of my comfort zone. But it’s all stuff that I can relate to, and I love the challenge.”
Four decades out from her Creative Music Studio days, it seems as if Crispell continues foraging for new sounds. DB
As Ted Nash, left, departs the alto saxophone chair for LCJO, Alexa Tarantino steps in as the band’s first female full-time member.
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