The sheer variety of the music performed ensures that there is much to enjoy, and the complexities of the music reveal new delights with each hearing.
Ogun OGCD 051
Larry Stabbins (tenor and soprano saxophones, flute); Keith Tippett (piano and voice)
Louis Moholo-Moholo (drums, voice, bass)
Recorded at The Conservatorio “U Giordano”, Foggia, Italy on 23 November 1985
This is an astonishing recording and a snapshot of a moment in time that deserves to be preserved and listened to time and time again. It is therefore very much to Ogun’s credit that they have made this music available.
Appetite The music captured here from a live concert in 1985 is breathtaking in its scope and depth of playing from all three musicians. All are at the top of their game, with saxophonist Larry Stabbins’s foray into the world of pop stardom with the bands Weekend and Working Week had dulled his appetite for improvisation.
The trio had recorded an earlier live album, Tern, for FMP during a few dates in Berlin in November 1982 and as Stabbins recalls in the liner notes “some of the same motifs from the Tern concert reoccurred” and it is this reoccurrence of themes that give titles to the two pieces heard her, ‘The Greatest Service’ and ‘Shield’; although both are significantly longer then heard on the Tern concert.
Opening with ‘The Greatest Service’, a mammoth improvisation lasting some forty-five minutes, the trio explore, take liberties and thoroughly engage an attentive audience. The music, although apparently not prearranged, often weaves a thematic thread as motifs come and go with some receiving a thorough examination as the music progresses.
The opening from Tippett and Stabbins on tenor is gently lyrical with a warm and luxuries sound from the saxophone prior to the introduction of an insistent vamp from the pianist that launches the trio into an open territory for improvisation. The music moves through several dialogues from tenor and drums to a duet with Moholo-Moholo’s drums and voice paired with Stabbins’s flute, and drums and piano conversation complete with Tippett’s effects for prepared piano. As the piece draws to a close there is wonderful surprise in the joyous township rhythm and theme that appears as if from nowhere, and Stabbins on soprano soars over the driving piano and drums.
The second piece, ‘Shield’ is a more open improvisation. Stabbins plays predominantly soprano saxophone as the trio engage in a thrilling and multi-faceted conversation before once again delivering up the unexpected in the final seven minutes with the saxophonist switching to tenor to bring the concert to a melodic close.
Live in Foggia captures these three musical masters in spectacular form. The sheer variety of the music performed ensures that there is much to enjoy, and the complexities of the music reveal new delights with each hearing.
