''Live at the Village Vanguard'' is a live album by pianist

Geri Allen Geri Antoinette Allen (June 12, 1957 – June 27, 2017) was an American jazz pianist, composer, and educator. In addition to her career as a performer and bandleader, Allen was also an associate professor of music at the University of Pittsburgh ...

, bassist

Charlie Haden Charles Edward Haden (August 6, 1937 – July 11, 2014) was an American jazz double bass player, bandleader, composer and educator whose career spanned more than 50 years. In the late 1950s, he was an original member of the ground-breaking ...

and drummer

Paul Motian Stephen Paul Motian (March 25, 1931 – November 22, 2011) was an American jazz drummer, percussionist, and composer. Motian played an important role in freeing jazz drummers from strict time-keeping duties. He first came to prominence in the ...

. It was recorded in 1990 at the

Village Vanguard The Village Vanguard is a jazz club at Seventh Avenue South in Greenwich Village, New York City. The club was opened on February 22, 1935, by Max Gordon. Originally, the club presented folk music and beat poetry, but it became primarily a jazz ...

and released on the Japanese DIW label.Geri Allen catalog
accessed June 30, 2014

Reception

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databa ...

awarded the album 4 stars, stating, "''Live at the Village Vanguard'' is a good CD musically, but there's not much jump-up factor here -- it's moody and very bluesy in feeling if not actual form, almost like chamber jazz at times. The very compressed, muted recorded sound doesn't alleviate the somber aspect of the listening experience any, but jazz is about capturing the moment. And those were the moments, emotional and musical, caught by these three master musicians on those two December nights".Snowden, D.
Allmusic Review
accessed June 30, 2014 The authors of the ''

Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings ''The Penguin Guide to Jazz'' is a reference work containing an encyclopedic directory of jazz recordings on CD which were (at the time of publication) currently available in Europe or the United States. The first nine editions were compiled by ...

'' awarded the album 4 stars, and wrote: "''Live'' is both accessible and inexhaustible, making its appeal at all sorts of unexpected levels... Even allowing for the head start of Keith Jarrett's 'Standards' trio, this is probably the best piano-led group currently working."

Track listing

''All compositions by Geri Allen except as indicated'' # "A Prayer for Peace" – 6:32 # "Obtuse Angles" – 6:07 # "It Should Have Happened a Long Time Ago" (Paul Motian) - 7:11 # "For Turiya" (Charlie Haden) - 1:01 # "Fiasco" (Motian) - 8:23 # "In the Year of the Dragon" (Motian) - 7:41 # "Vanguard Blues" (Haden) - 7:43 # "Mumbo Jumbo" (Motian) - 9:28 # "Song for the Whales" (Haden) - 7:59

Personnel

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keybo ...

- bass *

- drums

References

{{Paul Motian 1991 live albums Geri Allen live albums DIW Records live albums Albums recorded at the Village Vanguard Charlie Haden live albums Paul Motian live albums Live instrumental albums