The Psyche

Revolutionary Ensemble | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (February 22, 2004)
• Original Release Date: January 1, 1975
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Mutable Music
• ASIN: B0001MXNGA
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #233,367 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Invasion

2. Hu-man

3. Col legno

Editorial Reviews

LEROY JENKINS (violin), SIRONE (bass), JEROME COOPER (drums, piano)

"it’s a joy and a revelation to finally hear this album." – John Litweiler (from liner notes)

Long awaited reissue of .the Revolutionary Ensemble’s1975 album. The Psyche.

This group introduced New York to decided musical advances, many pioneered by Chicago’s A.A.C.M. musicians. Ex-Chicagoan Leroy Jenkins, who played violin, of all unheard-of modern jazz instruments, had formed his concept from classical, swing, blues, and modern elements and had been one of the radicals who discovered new concepts of sound, space, and musical relationships in the late 1960s. Jerome Cooper had been a somewhat later Chicago explorer, while Sirone’s freedom of motion had grown out of work with the most visionary New Yorkers. Extensive rehearsal led this cooperative trio to a shared, free sense of dynamics, momentum, and form, and a wholly unique sound: their instrumental recombinations yielded a surprising variety of textures and colors. Most of all, these highly sophisticated personalities played together to create an ensemble music even larger than the sum of its parts.

If you doubt the expressive capacity of stringed instruments, The Psyche should change your mind: Jenkins and Sirone have many ways of bowing and plucking, along with dramatic passages high and low on their instruments. Careful listening and sensitive responses sustain this music; accompaniments to solos grow into intense interplay. The ensemble regularly re-forms into solo, duet, and trio combinations, aided by the players’ doubling instruments. Jenkins’ mastery of thematic improvisation, including motive recall and motivic transformation, provides an especially valuable unifying element. In "Invasion," hear the opening sustained tones over a rattle (ghostly chains?) that are strained into heated tension, erupting into a fast tempo and three long tones that are Jenkin’s solo’s cell motive. Another highlight of this disc is the wonderfully conceived, far-ranging violin solo that becomes a colorful violin-bass-drums trio improvisation at the center of "Hu-Man." And don’t miss! "Col Legno," named for a technique of playing strings with the wood of the bow, which features especially close, intense interplay of violin-bass-piano. There are many other delights in this CD, for these artists are near the peak of their creative powers in The Psyche. Their remarkable realization of the ensemble ideal still is revolutionary, nearly three decades later.