STEVE SWELL Music for Six Musicians: Hommage à Olivier Messiaen

« What we have here is new music. Free music. Ellington and Armstrong were right in not wanting to call it anything else but Music. Why put it in a sub-category? This belongs with the best of any new music, period. And this new music is created (with the assistance of Swell’s scores and direction) by an ensemble that knows how to both play and listen geometric and mystical constructions: some preconceived by the skillful pen of Steve Swell and some spontaneously shaped and formed. Lean in. Listen again. And swim upstream and down with the band – it’s completely worth it. » (Ann Arbor, July 2017)