Cryptogramophone Assemblage

1998 - 2008 A Ten Year Retrospective [2 CDs + DVD]

Label: Cryptogramophone Country: USA

2008 is Cryptogramophone's 10th anniversary. To celebrate this event, they have presented this beautiful 2-CD, 1-DVD collectable package featuring 18 Crypto recording artists including Scott Amendola, Nels Cline, Bennie Maupin, Erik Friedlander, Myra Melford, Jenny Scheinman and more. Videos by Nels Cline and friends playing the music of Andrew Hill, and The Bennie Maupin Quartet round out the video DVD.

"Now this is how it should be done! In ten short years, Jeff Gauthier's Cryptogramophone has become a major force for releasing state-of-the-art, world-class recordings by creative musicians from America and Europe in startlingly beautiful packages. Its roster of releases includes titles by Myra Melford, Bennie Maupin, Nels Cline, Jeff Gauthier, David Witham, Mark Dresser, Jenny Scheinman, Don Preston, Alex Cline, Scott Amendola, Alan Pasqua, and Erik Friedlander. And while looking at the names above you would rightly get an idea that Cryptogramophone issues some outside titles; they have done recordings that simply defy categorization and are very accessible in terms of their warmth, immediacy, and the sheer excellence their performances. To mark their first decade they've issued a stellar three-disc collection -- two CDs and one DVD -- that sells for the price of a single-CD called Assemblage 1998-2008. The two audio discs are chock-full of performances from their catalog. The listener is brought into the Crypto M.O. early on. The label was begun with the first of three volumes of compositions by the late bassist Eric Von Essen, a bandmate of Gauthier's and the Cline brothers. In other words, the label was created as a tribute to a friend to be sure, but also to showcase the music of an extremely gifted composer no one knew about outside of a very small circle. "Silvana" is simply gorgeous and a fitting entryway. Other highlights of the first disc include a reading of Carla Bley's "Walking Batteriewoman," by the Don Preston Trio, Alex Cline's "Sonnet 9,"and Gauthier's own "Solflicka." Disc two's highlights include "Escondido" from Maupin's Early Reflections album (which features a cast of all Polish musicians he'd been working with for a couple of years), Scott Amendola's "Buffalo Bird Woman," and Todd Sickafoose's "Future Flora," as well as work by Scheinman, Melford, and the Nels Cline Singers. This stuff is all top-flight. The liner notes by Gauthier offer a subjective but engaging history of the label as well."-Thom Jurek