>>news added to the end of this post…<<
The Morton Feldman Piano box by Philip Thomas on Another Timbre unquestionably is among this year’s foremost achievements... but Philip has another new CD that's worth your attention, as well: as if as features original compositions and Derek Bailey transcriptions (!!) by Chris Burn, just out on Confront, the hardy little free improvisation/modern composition label maintained by Mark Wastell—himself a distinctive and versatile improviser.
Burn is an accomplished pianist who started in jazz, moved into free improvisation, and then resumed an interest in composition and arrangement. The pieces on Thomas's new CD – which I won't pretend to have absorbed fully just yet – are pithy and fascinating; the Bailey arrangements resourceful and clever. You can learn more about the CD – and even order it! – on the Confront website; note that it's not available through the Confront Bandcamp page.
In poking around the web this evening for links to embed in this post, I was pleasantly surprised to discover two earlier releases featuring both Thomas and Burn. One is on Bruce's Fingers, the label operated by English improvising bassist and composer Simon H. Fell: Comprovisation, from 2007, features Thomas playing scored works involving indeterminacy or improvisation, written by Burn, Fell, Paul Obermayer, Michael Finnissy, John Cage, and Mick Beck. (Fell is Wastell's bandmate in the excellent improvising trio IST, with harpist Rhodri Davies.)
The other recording – The Middle Distance, from 2009 – is a fully improvised encounter featuring Thomas, Burn, and Fell. And that one, to bring everything full circle, is on Another Timbre—and you can get it on Bandcamp, if you like.
Postscript Oct. 20, 2019: I have been informed by Philip Thomas that his Chris Burn CD on Confront has a serious manufacturing defect. A new pressing is being prepared, and replacement discs will be provided to anyone who already ordered. I'll update this post as I learn more.
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