Imaginary Cities is the first recording of the Chris Potter Underground Orchestra, an eleven-piece group in which the saxophonist's working quartet meets vibraphone, two bassists and a string quartet. Its centre is a four-movement suite about an imagined modern city. Four further pieces extend its moods, mixing tightly written material with wide open space for improvising.
The ensemble took shape after an invitation to present new music at Jazz at Lincoln Center. Its core is the Underground band, with Adam Rogers on guitars, Nate Smith on drums and Craig Taborn, who here plays acoustic piano rather than his usual Fender Rhodes. Steve Nelson, Potter's colleague from the Dave Holland Quintet, adds vibraphone and marimba, while Scott Colley on double bass and Fima Ephron on bass guitar share the low end. The strings are led by violinist Mark Feldman. The album was recorded in December 2013 at Avatar Studios in New York, with James Farber engineering, and produced by Manfred Eicher.
Potter has said he wanted no "classical-meets-jazz feeling", and the strings are written into the fabric of each piece rather than laid on as a cushion. The title suite moves through Compassion, Dualities, Disintegration and Rebuilding, from long saxophone melodies to passages where reeds, percussion and strings break apart and slowly reassemble. In Lament the bass sits against melancholy string figures before drums and tenor take the lead. Sky, the longest track at twelve minutes, gives the strings an Indian-inflected line and Potter's solo grows frayed and fiery over Taborn's piano. Elsewhere the references include Arabic string sections and, in Shadow Self, Béla Bartók.
Reviews were strong on both sides of the Atlantic. In DownBeat, which gave the album four and a half stars, James Hale called it "a triumphant integration of diverse elements that alternately soars and dances." Thomas Conrad in JazzTimes heard a breakthrough for Potter as composer and arranger, adding that "he has never played on record with more focus and power." In London Jazz News, Andrew Cartmel wrote that Potter had "created a big band to be reckoned with."
This is the CD edition, ECM 2387, released in January 2015, with about seventy minutes of music, all composed by Potter.
