Piano Quartet, Yoshi's 1994 Explained

Piano Quartet, Yoshi's 1994
Type:Live album
Artist:Anthony Braxton
Cover:Piano Quartet, Yoshi's 1994.jpg
Released:1996
Recorded:June 15–19, 1994
Venue:Yoshi's, Oakland, CA
Genre:Jazz
Length:309:34
Label:Music & Arts
CD 849
Chronology:Anthony Braxton
Prev Year:1994
Next Title:Knitting Factory (Piano/Quartet) 1994, Vol. 1
Next Year:1994

Piano Quartet, Yoshi's 1994 is a live album by composer and pianist Anthony Braxton with a quartet, recorded at the Yoshi's in 1994 and released on the Music & Arts label in 1996 as a four-CD box set.[1] [2] [3] [4]

Reception

The Allmusic review by Thom Jurek stated "Piano Quartet, Yoshi's 1994 is a four-CD collection focusing on the live dates Anthony Braxton's short-lived piano quartet played at Yoshi's Nitespot in Oakland, CA, in 1994. They mark the debut of Anthony Braxton as a pianist in a live jazz quartet setting, and were savaged fairly thoroughly by jazz critics when first issued. ... those critiques were motivated, it seems, not by the actual merits (or lack thereof) of Braxton's ability to play the instrument, but by the same insensitivity, meanness of spirit, and complete lack of understanding that has followed him his entire career ... this band never got to realize its full potential because of the various commitments and restless natures of its two principals. Nonetheless, this collection is more than a document; it is a development not only in Braxton's ever evolving and often confounding esthetic, but in the development of jazz itself as an interconnected, meta-textual music whose roots and branches are more deeply embedded into one another than we previously believed. The piano quartet has made a first step in dragging the roots out to be more closely examined in a driving, singing, swinging way".

Track listing

Disc one

  1. "Exotica" (John Coltrane) – 13:16
  2. "Woody 'n' You" (Dizzy Gillespie) – 8:14
  3. "Soul Eyes" (Mal Waldron) – 15:54
  4. "Bluesette" (Toots Thielemans) – 12:45
  5. "Stablemates" (Benny Golson) – 9:57
  6. "Marionette" (Billy Bauer) – 11:32
  7. "Cherokee" (Ray Noble) – 5:03

Disc two

  1. "The Duke" (Dave Brubeck) – 9:22
  2. "Nica's Dream" (Horace Silver) – 13:18
  3. "Lament" (J. J. Johnson) – 10:50
  4. "Pannonica" (Thelonious Monk) – 10:41
  5. "Star Eyes" (Gene de Paul, Don Raye) – 8:47
  6. "I Remember You" (Victor Schertzinger, Johnny Mercer) – 12:37
  7. "Along Came Betty" (Golson) – 9:40

Disc three'

  1. "Line for Lyons" (Gerry Mulligan) – 14:12
  2. "Joy Spring" (Clifford Brown) – 10:09
  3. "Lush Life" (Billy Strayhorn) – 16:22
  4. "Jinrikisha" (Joe Henderson) – 13:38
  5. "What's New?" (Bob Haggart, Johnny Burke) – 15:14
  6. "Minority" (Gigi Gryce) – 9:03

Disc four

  1. "Nardis" (Miles Davis) – 13:49
  2. "Booker's Waltz" (Eric Dolphy) – 8:58
  3. "Body and Soul" (Johnny Green, Frank Eyton, Edward Heyman, Robert Sour) – 7:45
  4. "Just Friends" (John Klenner, Sam M. Lewis) – 13:36
  5. "Afternoon in Paris" (John Lewis) – 11:22
  6. "I Can't Get Started" (Vernon Duke, Ira Gershwin) – 15:01
  7. "Early Autumn" (Ralph Burns, Woody Herman, Johnny Mercer) – 8:29

Personnel

Notes and References

  1. http://www.restructures.net/BraxDisco/BraxDisco.htm Anthony Braxton discography
  2. https://enciclopediadeljazz.wordpress.com/2016/09/04/anthony-braxton/ Enciclopedia del Jazz: Anthony Braxton
  3. https://www.musicandarts.com/the-anthony-braxton-piano-quartet-plays-standard-jazz-classics.html Music & Arts Records Catalog
  4. http://joefonda.com/piano-quartet-yoshis-1994 Joe Fonda discography