Can you tell when a straight-ahead jazz performance – live or recorded –
is also an experimental one? No? We can: it happens when Eric Revis is
involved, being this double bassist the not-enough-recognized link
between Betty Carter and Peter Brotzmann. “City of Asylum” was born from
an idea with improbable potential to become a reality – his thought
was: what about if I start a trio with a free jazz veteran and a
post-everything rising star, would that work? And what about if those
roles are represented by Andrew Cyrille, Cecil Taylor’s drummer from the
mid-Sixties to the mid-Seventies and now an established, mainstream
voice, and young Kris Davis, maybe the most expressive and surprisingly
minimalistic of the present day creative pianists? Strange? Not so:
since the first gathering a spark happened and this is a trio in
continuous development. There’s only three compositions played, by
Thelonious Monk, Keith Jarrett and Revis himself; the rest are
improvisations. So cohesive that it seems written note by note.
Andrew Cyrille (d), Eric Revis (b), Kris Davis (p), Clean Feed
