Two Voices in Conversation, Sparse and Searching
Waldron and Lacy strip everything down to essentials, leaving space for real listening.
This album puts you in a room with a piano and soprano saxophone having a quiet argument. Mal Waldron's touch is dry and angular, his comping sparse — he leaves gaps where you'd expect chords. Steve Lacy circles overhead on soprano, his tone thin and slightly brittle, almost conversational. There's no rhythm section cushioning them, no drums pushing time forward. The three tracks move slowly, with long passages where one musician plays alone while the other listens. It's tense in a way that makes you pay attention.
This is deep into Waldron's late period, when he'd spent years absorbing European free jazz and Afro-Caribbean music. He and Lacy had worked together before, and that history shows in how they anticipate each other — Waldron will suddenly drop out entirely, leaving Lacy to navigate alone, then re-enter with a single note that shifts everything. The original LP was short, just three tracks, but the 2005 reissue added two alternate takes that let you hear how they varied their approach each time through.
It's not a masterpiece and it's not for casual listening. The music is deliberately restrained, sometimes austere. But if you want to hear two musicians thinking in real time, refusing easy answers, this delivers exactly that. Start with this if you know Waldron's earlier work and want to follow him into stranger territory.
Who's playing
Kent Carterbass
Mal Waldronpiano
Steve Lacysoprano saxophone
Steve Pottsalto saxophone
Noel McGhiedrums
Irene Aebicello
Where next?
The musicians on this record
♫
Tips 1981
Irene Aebi
plays cello here
plays cello here
♫
Regeneration 1983
Kent Carter
plays bass here
plays bass here
Flim Flam 1991
Steve Potts
plays alto saxophone here
plays alto saxophone here
