This is my fifth archive release produced for the Inky Dot Media label. This concert at the NYU Loeb Student Center Eisner and Lubin Auditorium, for their New music Showcase series, was an opportunity to present two sets of my original tunes performed by the Spacelight Band at a high point.

Saxophonist Byard Lancaster and Charles Brackeen provided the front-line along with vocalist Genie Sherman Walker. Drummer extraordinaire Lou Grassi and I held down the varying rhythm. I especially enjoy listening to the spontaneous arco-5-string double bass ad bass clarinet duet sections playing with Byard Lancaster. He, and now Charles Brackeen are gone. Thanks for the Light everyone. [Steve Tintweiss]

The leader here is bassist Steve Tintweiss, a long-distance runner in an exceptionally challenging field. This recording, which had long sat untouched in Steve’s archive, captures a night in 1980 when his Spacelight Band played in a new-music concert series at the Loeb Student Center of New York University.

CD 1:
1. The Theme / Man Alone
2. Spring Raga
3. Whistle Stop Tour / I Lust You
4. Love’s Fortune
5. Risk-O-Disc
6. Marion
7. Abandoned Dance
[Break Announcement]

This beautifully crafted and immensely immersive live recording opens on the short, but sweet The Theme / Man Alone and then moves smoothly into the Indian musical traditions within Spring Raga, the layered rhythmic shifts of Whistle Stop Tour / I Lust You, the trance-like Love’s Fortune, and then comes the insistent, veritably snake charming bass that encourages some dulcet flute playing within the near nine minute Risk-O-Disc, the musically lavish Marion is along next, the first disc closing on the incredible instrumentation showcasing them all, and yet another near nine minute musical wonderment, Abandoned Dance; and a short break announcement then follows.

CD 2:
1. Knowledge is Power
2. Flash!
3. Ash Dung Blues Bowl
4. Vermont Tune
5. Do Not Look Back
[Closing remarks and credits]

The second disc opens on the beautiful, and varying rhythms and melodies within Knowledge is Power along with the standalone, and near ten minute Flash! and then they are themselves followed smoothly by the sinuously embroidered, and near twelve minute Ash Dung Blues Bowl, the recording rounding out on the Genie-wailed, ten minute Vermont Tune and the avant-garde-imbibed Do Not Look Back; ending on some closing remarks and credits.

The music on this recording is classified as free jazz, but that term doesn’t do justice to the evocative, theatrical, often hair-raising sounds herein. Some are dreamlike, others nightmarish. Lines are incanted hypnotically and mutate subtly.

You’ll hear a chirping flute that could be an agitated bird; a marching band with an air of menace; a saxophone that lets out a ghoulish cackle. All while an unexpected lyricism brightens even the darkest corners.

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