Andrew Cyrille, Dom Um Romao, Pandit Prakash Maharaj, Connie Bauer, Lennart Åberg, Bernd Konrad, Luis Di Matteo, Vikash Maharaj, Tom van der Gel, Rudy Smith, David Friesen ‎in To Hear The World In A Grain Of Sand (World Music - Live At The Donaueschingen Festival)

Several familiar names in here obviously, this consists of 4 long tracks, all by different composers, that are not overly boring.  In general I stay away from any description using the words world music but at this earlier stage (1986) the simplistic ethnic component is thankfully minimal, and in fact, the level of composition seems quite advanced.   Title track is by Bernd Konrad, German sax player.

And Happy Laborious Day to everyone out there...

David Friesen and John Stowell in Storyteller, 1981

Getting a little tired of this guy?  Uh, well, this one, from 1981, is very Oregon-like and enjoyable with the adding of oboes and English Horn played by the great Paul McCandless resulting in tracks that are shapely and well formed.  If you love Oregon (count me in that set), you'll like this one.  In addition, Tom Harrell appears on some tracks on flugelhorn.

The new agey Spirit Lake:





A nice slice of intellectual chamber jazz.

More Friesen and Stowell in 1980's Other Mansions

Artist involvement is quite sparse as can be seen by the release page here, in fact, the two men play all the instruments.  But it was a worthy purchase as it is without a doubt the best in the series, coming together quite nicely with the mix of acoustic ethnic elements, chamber instruments (Friesen on flute) and the Townerish guitar playing of Stowell. The other LPs of the collaboration were posted here, btw.  Friesen himself was quite prolific, in his solo discography there are numerous other LPs seemingly of interest.

For example, Brethren Ascending sounds like the best (acoustic pieces) from recently featured artists James Vincent or Don Mock:

Back to David Friesen with 1979's Color Pool

On this first album from him the accompaniment includes David Coleman, Jr. on drums and Jerry Heldman on flute.  David himself in addition to playing bass, plays piano on some tracks and produced the whole.

An interesting introductory quotation for the traditionally jazz liner notes on the back (which were written by Mikal Gilmore, and present a bio of Friesen):

"The pool was filled with beautiful colors,and as the Lord dipped with the ladle to show me the brilliance of his creation, He said, ...  "Take from this pool, this spiritual substance... to fill the gift of music that I have given unto you... that you may go forth and show the glory of the Kingdom of God."

This album is more experimental than the others I've posted from him, as to be expected from the youthfulness of it.

Accessible is A5's Living Water piano tinkling:




More to come from him soon.

David Friesen and John Stowell: Star Dance; Waterfall Rainbow; and Through The Listening Glass

Bassist David Friesen made quite a few albums back in the day with a very Oregonian feel, thanks to the frequent use of not just modern classical influences but also added string quartet, oboe and soprano sax textures.  There is a quite a bit of 'filler' (for me) bass solo material to wade through in these but here and there some true delights shine through, and these are far far less known than Ralph Towner and Collin Walcott's group.  (Incidentally I just recently heard their bassist Glen Moore's 1979 album Introducing which is also incredibly well composed.)

The towering Ralph Townering of Star Dance from Friesen and Stowell's first, 1976 album of the same name:

Note the scoring of oboe and clarinet with string quartet.

More of the same plus more chamber instruments on the Wedding Dance from the second album featured here:

From the final collaboration album, Opening Out:






Obviously, christian themes permeate.