''Vintage Duets'' is an album by American jazz saxophonist Fred Anderson with drummer

Steve McCall Stephen Harold McCall (born 15 October 1960) is an English retired footballer who now works as a Scout for Carlisle United. A defensive midfielder during his playing days, McCall built a reputation as a cultured midfield player, with immacula ...

Background

Before joining

Henry Threadgill Henry Threadgill (born February 15, 1944) is an American composer, saxophonist and flautist. He came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles rooted in jazz but with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating other genres of music. He h ...

Air The atmosphere of Earth is the layer of gases, known collectively as air, retained by Earth's gravity that surrounds the planet and forms its planetary atmosphere. The atmosphere of Earth protects life on Earth by creating pressure allowing for ...

trio, McCall worked with Anderson at various points from early in his career, playing together in 1966 on

Joseph Jarman Joseph Jarman (September 14, 1937 – January 9, 2019) was an American jazz musician, composer, poet, and Shinshu Buddhist priest. He was one of the first members of the Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians and a member of the ...

's ''Song For'', a seminal document of the AACM. ''Vintage Duets'' was recorded in 1980 at the request of the tiny Austrian Message label, but the company went out of business before the album was released and finally the tapes were the primary instigation that started Bruno Johnson's

Okka Disk Okka Disk is an independent American jazz record company and label founded in Chicago by Bruno Johnson in 1994. Okka began as a rock music label, but Johnson soon changed direction to record free jazz.

label in 1994. The album was Anderson's first recording released in a decade.''Vintage Duets''
at Okka Disk

Reception

In her review for

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 databas ...

, Joslyn Layne states "is not only energetic and masterful, but somehow so full, warm, and grounded that (to free-jazz ears) it is also soothing." Howard Reich, writing for the

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

, called the album "revelatory," and wrote: "the lucid structure, logical development, impeccable phrasing, accomplished technique and melodic sensitivity of his solos... run counter to almost everything 'free jazz' has come to mean today." 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 ...

'' stated that the duets "are as laid back and unhurried as could ever be, sometimes to the point where the listener feels excluded."

Track listing

# "Within" - 21:17 # "Wandering" - 23:11

Personnel

* Fred Anderson -

tenor sax The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor and the alto are the two most commonly used saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B (while th ...

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. Exc ...

References

{{Authority control Fred Anderson (musician) albums Okka Disk albums 1994 albums