Lacy, Steve / Waldron, Mal

Live In Berlin 1984

Label: Jazzwerkstatt Country: Germany

"A duo performance like a comprehensive objet d'art, music shaped by movement, rhythm and ease, poetic and embellished with architectural and choreographic elements - a consolidated work of art that made the stage lift off!

Lacy and Waldron started working together in the mid-1950s when they recorded Reflections Prestige which featured only Monk compositions. Monk's heritage was the foundation that saxophonist Lacy and pianist Waldron built their musical relationship on, a relationship that got increasingly closer.

Whoever was lucky enough to witness their 1984 live performance in East Berlin must have felt like browsing a familiar reference book that had repeatedly been pondered and polished over. We can hear Lacy and Waldron tap their feet to the beat and let their voices go along with their fingers. We instinctively follow that double-headed organism become one, in a free flow of the senses that had been spreading through the audience from the very beginning of the show, the music unfolding in perfect harmony. Their introductory improvisation evokes one memory after another, subsequently brought to life with pieces written by Lacy, Strayhorn, and Waldron. Finally, Monk's masterpiece "Epistrophy" completes a beguiling journey, the course of which only became clearly visible during our travels, when we leisurely drifted along in twists and turns to experience all those fascinating breakaways, skillful moves and brilliant interlacings.Is it magic? Is it hypnosis? We lose our bearings between straightforwardness and precariously entangled notes which self-ignite at their very end when Lacy and Waldron lift off and take us on a journey to the Berlin sky..."-Guillaume Tarche