James Newton Quartet - Live In Willisau Switzerland 1983 [CD]

James Newton Quartet - Live In Willisau Switzerland 1983 - In the spring of 1983, a newly conceived version of the JAMES NEWTON QUARTET appeared on the European jazz scene. After four decades, producer Stephan Meyner contacted James Newton. They realised that, unfortunately, the quartet had never released a recording. This changed when he unearthed a 1983 recording of the quartet from Willisau in Switzerland. A few months before the tour, James Newton had heard about a fantastic young pianist, composer and scholar from Detroit who was completing her master's degree in ethnomusicology at the University of Pittsburgh - Geri Allen. The members of the JAMES NEWTON QUARTET for this European tour included Geri Allen on piano, Anthony Cox on bass and Andrew Cyrille on drums. The recording from Willisau is one of the first recordings in Geri Allen's long, historic and outstanding career. Bassist, composer and bandleader Anthony Cox has immense, highly virtuosic mastery of his instrument, plays with great sensitivity, contributes to every nuance of the ensemble with incredible technical skill and responds to it with confidence, switching skilfully and fluently between different styles. : " Forever Charles,' dedicated to Mingus, and 'Pinkie Below," the nickname given to my then young son James III by one of his uncles because he was the youngest grandson in the family and was born with light skin.