Jemeel Moondoc

Konstanze's Delight is a live recording by the Jemeel Moondoc Sextet, taped at the 3rd Street Music School in New York on October 24, 1981 and released by Soul Note in 1983. Moondoc plays alto saxophone with trumpeter Roy Campbell, vibraphonist Khan Jamal, bassist William Parker, drummer Denis Charles and the singer Ellen Christi. The title piece takes up almost thirty minutes. As Phil Freeman recounts in a 2014 Burning Ambulance interview, Moondoc's band Muntu had lost its rhythm section to Cecil Taylor around the turn of the decade, and he began assembling groups for gigs and recording the results; this was one of the Soul Note albums made that way.

Christi's part is unusual for a band of this kind. She sings without words, as another line in the ensemble, and Moondoc told Freeman that "it was an experiment. It worked, so it felt right". For him, he said, an avant-garde singer has to improvise rather than carry lyrics, and Christi was "using her voice as another instrument". Jamal returned to Moondoc's bands years later, and Moondoc spoke of him in the same interview as a player he loved working with. All three pieces are Moondoc's: the long Konstanze's Delight, Chasing the Moon at about thirteen minutes, and High Rise, a closing piece of a little over two. Moondoc also produced the record, with Judy Sneed producing the concert and Giovanni Bonandrini as executive producer. Kazunori Sugiyama recorded it and Lee Jeske wrote the liner notes.

This is the Soul Note CD 121041-2 of the album first released in 1983 on LP as SN 1041.