Fred Anderson

This 1979 session with bassist Larry Hayrod, drummer Hamid Drake and percussionist Adam Rudolph marked Fred Anderson's American debut recording and caught the 50 year old tenor saxophonist at a peak of power and creativity. The original LP contained three Anderson compositions - Twilight, A Ballad For Rita and The Bull. This CD reissue has added Hamid Drake's Tabla Peace, a hypnotic 15 minute theme in slow motion.

The date was meant for Anderson's working quartet, but trumpeter Billy Brimfield was in California and could not make it. Anderson went ahead without him and, at Drake's suggestion, brought in Adam Rudolph on percussion. Hayrod was then new to the group, having replaced bassist Steven Palmore, who had moved to New York after touring Europe with one of Anderson's ensembles.

Recorded on September 17, 1979 at Pierce Arrow Recorders and mixed at Studiomedia, the album stayed in the can until Nessa Records issued it in 1984. The four pieces are long, from almost 14 to over 17 minutes, built on Anderson's broad, blues-rooted tenor. The Penguin Guide to Jazz heard in him a bridge between the sparse, blues-soaked sound of early Ornette Coleman and the radicalism of the AACM, the Chicago collective Anderson belonged to from its early days.

Produced by Fred Anderson and Chuck Nessa. Jewel case with an 8-page booklet, liner notes by Neil Tesser, photography and design by Lauren Deutsch.