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Marilyn Crispell

Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music where she studied classical piano and composition, and has been a resident of Woodstock, New York since 1977 when she came to study and teach at the Creative Music Studio. She discovered jazz through the music of John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor and other contemporary jazz players and composers. For ten years she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble and has been a member of the Barry Guy New Orchestra and guest with his London Jazz Composers Orchestra, as well as a member of the Henry Grimes Trio, Quartet Noir (with Urs Leimgruber, Fritz Hauser and Joelle Leandre), and Anders Jormin's Bortom Quintet. In 2005 she performed and recorded with the NOW Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada and in 2006 she was co-director of the Vancouver Creative Music Institute and a faculty member at the Banff Centre International Workshop in Jazz. In 2014 she led a three-week music residency at the Atlantic Center For the Arts, New Smyrna Beach, Florida, and in 2016 led a one-week residency at the Conservatory Manuel de Falla in Buenos Aires. In 2019 she will be a guiding artist at the Jazzdanmark Summer Session in Denmark. Currently she is touring and recording with two different trios: Joe Lovano's Trio Tapestry (with Carmen Castaldi) and a trio with Harvey Sorgen and Joe Fonda, as well as collaborating with Angelica Sanchez, Tanya Kalmanovitch, Gunhild Seim, Tyshawn Sorey, David Rothenberg and others.

Besides working as a soloist and leader of her own groups, Crispell has performed and recorded extensively with well-known players on the American and international jazz scene. She's also performed and recorded music by contemporary composers Robert Cogan, Pozzi Escot, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Manfred Niehaus and Anthony Davis (including four performances of his opera "X" with the New York City Opera).

In addition to playing, she has taught improvisation workshops and given lecture/demonstrations at universities and art centers in the U.S., Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and has collaborated with videographers, filmmakers, dancers and poets.

Crispell has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship grants (1988-1989, 1994-1995 and 2006-2007), a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission (1988-1989), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (2005-2006). In 1996 she was given an Outstanding Alumni Award by the New England Conservatory, and in 2004, was cited as being one of their 100 most outstanding alumni of the past 100 years.


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13
Album Review

Joe Lovano Trio Tapestry: Our Daily Bread

Read "Our Daily Bread" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


Rising from a serene inner place, the music takes shape like prayer. That it is prayer that lies at the beating heart of all eight spacious spirituals that comprise Our Daily Bread, should come as no surprise. Bearing the expressive quietism of his ancestors--John Coltrane, Sonny Stitt, and Ornette Coleman among them--saxophonist Joe Lovano has never hid his leaning towards higher powers. Imagine Trio Tapestry's third deep listening, deeply rewarding ECM release as a house of worship at ...

Album Review

Yuma Uesaka, Marilyn Crispell: Streams

Read "Streams" reviewed by Neri Pollastri


La grande ed esperta pianista Marilyn Crispell incontra in questo lavoro il giovane e talentuoso sassofonista e clarinettista di origini giapponesi Yuma Uesaka per dar vita a un album caratterizzato dall'equilibrata alternanza di scrittura e improvvisazione, lirismo e libertà. La Crispell ha lavorato con molti dei più importanti maestri del jazz e dell'improvvisazione—da Anthony Braxton a Gary Peacock e Paul Motian—e ha una particolare predilezione per il lavoro in duo, che mette qui a frutto sul materiale messo ...

2
Radio & Podcasts

Dreamstruck, Jon Irabagon, Jesse Morrow & Clean Feed Releases

Read "Dreamstruck, Jon Irabagon, Jesse Morrow & Clean Feed Releases" reviewed by Maurice Hogue


One of the memorable piano trio releases of 2022 should be With Grace In Mind from the trio Dreamstruck. Marilyn Crispell, Joe Fonda & Harvey Sorgen are among the finest at their craft and together they create original music from original ideas. Also on the playlist this week, Jon Irabagon's steamin' quartet, several albums from Italy by pianist Alberto Braida, guitarist Nicolo Francesca Faraglia and vocalist Monica Nica Agosti, three new releases from Clean Feed (Red Desert Orchestra, Marek Pospiezalski, ...

3
Album Review

Clint Bahr: Puzzlebox

Read "Puzzlebox" reviewed by Chris M. Slawecki


Puzzlebox is precisely that: A hard-cover box of musical curios arranged around an 11-minute improvisation ("As Tympani Melt in the Greek Heat") performed not by a band but by a rotating caravan of progressive jazz and rock musicians organized by multi-instrumentalist and composer Clint Bahr. Bahr's collaborators in this curious collection include pianist Marilyn Crispell, violinist David Cross, the late Yes guitarist Peter Banks and other musicians who have performed with artists as far-ranging as Sun Ra and Rahsaan Roland ...

2
Album Review

Dreamstruck: With Grace In Mind

Read "With Grace In Mind" reviewed by Mike Jurkovic


With over one hundred and twenty-five years of gigging and recording between them, one might rightfully argue that pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Joe Fonda, and drummer Harvey Sorgen have said, played, performed, and heard everything that needs be said, played, performed, and heard. The argument could continue that the trio-- Dreamstruck-- have individually and collectively contributed to some of the best by such fellow travelers as Anthony Braxton, Karl Berger, Carla Bley, Archie Shepp, Paul Motian, and Pauline Oliveros. But, ...

14
Extended Analysis

Brass And Ivory Tales

Read "Brass And Ivory Tales" reviewed by Hrayr Attarian


Innovative saxophonist Ivo Perelman celebrates his 60th birthday with the release of a magnum opus, Brass And Ivory Tales. Recorded over a period of seven years, this nine-volume box set is impressive in both its depth and breath as it matches Perelman with a different piano master per disc. The improvised duets are usually the first documented meeting between the two musicians and the instant and rapidly evolving synergy is fresh and thrilling. Both remarkable and expected is Perelman's ability ...

12
Album Review

Ivo Perelman: Brass And Ivory Tales

Read "Brass And Ivory Tales" reviewed by Mark Corroto


Archeologists and cultural anthropologists theorize early humans had some form of music appreciation. They listened to the sounds wind made as it passed through trees. The breeze sounded different passing through oak than it did fir trees, and the sound was altered whether it was spring or fall. Then there were the bird songs, the first Lennon & McCartneys of the stone age. Early man replicated these melodies, with bones that could be whittled into horns or used to recreate ...

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Contest

Enter the "Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell - Azure" Giveaway at All About Jazz!

Enter the "Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell - Azure" Giveaway at All About Jazz!

Source: All About Jazz

All About Jazz members are invited to enter the ECM Records “Gary Peacock and Marilyn Crispell - Azure“ giveaway contest starting today. We'll select FIVE winners at the conclusion of the contest on July 29th. Click here to enter the contest

(Becoming a fan of Gary Peacock at AAJ automatically enters you in the contest.)

Good luck! Your Friends at ECM Records About Azure

Azure features beautiful duets by two great improvisers whose compatibility was proven long ago. ...

209

Interview

Marilyn Crispell Interview

Marilyn Crispell Interview

Source: All About Jazz


186

Radio

The Jazz Session #52: Marilyn Crispell

The Jazz Session #52: Marilyn Crispell

Source: All About Jazz


138

Performance / Tour

Marilyn Crispell, Saturday, Aug. 19--Maverick Jazz Series Woodstock, NY

Marilyn Crispell, Saturday, Aug. 19--Maverick Jazz Series Woodstock, NY

Source: Jim Eigo, Jazz Promo Services

Marilyn Crispell, jazz piano, Saturday, Aug. 19, 8 pm

WOODSTOCK, N.Y., August 8 , 2006 -- Maverick's first Jazz Series comes to a close on Saturday, August 19, when piano great (and Woodstock resident) Marilyn Crispell will give a solo performance at 8:00 p.m.

Marilyn Crispell is a graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music. For ten years she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble and has been a member of the ...

83

Event

Daniel Abrams and Marilyn Crispell Rehearse For Tristan's Promise

Daniel Abrams and Marilyn Crispell Rehearse For Tristan's Promise

Source: All About Jazz

Daniel Abrams and Marilyn Crispell rehearse for the forthcoming production of ABRAMS' new play Tristan's Promise being presented by the Woodstock Guild at the historic Byrdcliffe Barn (part of America's oldest ungoing art's colony) on Friday, August 27 & Saturday, August 28th at 8pm. The play is about the interrelationship of two concert pianists and their manager (played by John Michalski) and the music performed by the two pianists, both separately and together, will range from Mozart to Wagner to ...

147

Performance / Tour

Lee Konitz, Marilyn Crispell, Geri Allen, Ray Brown, Holly Hofmann...

Lee Konitz, Marilyn Crispell, Geri Allen, Ray Brown, Holly Hofmann...

Source: All About Jazz

BYRONIK.COM - March 9, 2002

Sax man Konitz comes late to the party but brings three women By MICHAEL C. BURGESS BYRONIK.COM — March 9, 2002

The talents of three supremely accomplished female jazz performers: pianists Marilyn Crispell and Geri Allen, and flutist Holly Hofmann, are to be showcased by the Athenaeum Music & Arts Library in its Spring 2002 Jazz at The Neurosciences Institute concerts, San Diego, CA.

And, for the first ...

"Hearing Marilyn Crispell play solo piano is like monitoring an active volcano. She is one of a very few pianists who rise to the challenge of free jazz." —Jon Pareles, N.Y. Times "Ms Crispell has created a rich personal expression that is breathtaking in its originality and visceral energy." —Amy Duncan, Christian Science Monitor "seeing and hearing Crispell play live is a stunning experience.... a passionate motivation that approaches shamanistic spirituality." "labyrinthine structures held together by a deeply personal logic" "one of the most technically brilliant, imaginative and impassioned contemporary musicians now expanding the expressive potential of the piano." —Derk Richardson, The East Bay Express (CA) "Her improvisational approach is so personal, so explosive and so devastating that it makes jazz (and most other music) sound like the archaic language of an ancient people

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Photos

Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Our Daily Bread

ECM Records
2023

buy

Puzzlebox

MoonJune Records
2022

buy

Streams

Not Two Records
2021

buy

Brass And Ivory Tales

Fundacja Sluchaj
2021

buy

Our Daily Bread

From: Our Daily Bread
By Marilyn Crispell

Windfall Light

From: How To turn the Moon
By Marilyn Crispell

Videos

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