''Topaz'' is a 1999 album by cellist

Erik Friedlander Erik Friedlander is an American cellist and composer based in New York City. A veteran of New York City's experimental downtown scene, Friedlander has worked in many contexts, but is perhaps best known for his frequent collaborations with sax ...

which was released on the Siam label and features the quartet that became known as Topaz.Eric Friedlander discography
accessed January 7, 2014

Reception

The

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 ...

review by Alex Henderson awarded the album 4 stars stating "Topaz, like a lot of avant-garde jazz, isn't easy to absorb on the first listen. But the more times you listen, the more you realize how much this left-of-center CD has going for it".Henderson, A
Allmusic Review
accessed January 7, 2014

Track listing

''All compositions by Erik Friedlander except as indicated'' # "Verdine" - 5:37 # "November" - 4:20 # "Shining" - 6:10 # "Straw Dogs" - 7:29 # "Topaz" - 2:49 # "Three Desperate Men" - 3:31 # "Tout de Suite" (

Miles Davis Miles Dewey Davis III (May 26, 1926September 28, 1991) was an American trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music. Davis adopted a variety of musi ...

) - 8:29 # "Hat and Beard" ( Eric Dolphy) - 4:45 # "Something Sweet, Something Tender / Cienega" (Dolphy / Friedlander) - 6:59 # "Agon" - 5:56

Personnel

–

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a bowed (sometimes plucked and occasionally hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually tuned in perfect fifths: from low to high, C2, G ...

Andy Laster Andrew Jay Laster (born May 25, 1961 in Bethpage, New York) is an American jazz saxophonist. Laster studied early in his career with Joe Dixon and Dave Burns, both in the 1970s; he lived in Seattle in the early 1980s, where he attended Cornish ...

- alto saxophone * Stomu Takeishi - bass *Satoshi Takeishi -

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

References

{{Authority control 1999 albums Erik Friedlander albums