Amaryllis

Amaryllis marked the return of the great American jazz trio that delivered the poll-topping Nothing Ever Was, Anyway in 1997. The repertory heard on the album is by turns thoughtful, touching, joyous and viscerally exciting. Some of the songs are well known – almost classics of new jazz – including Crispell’s "Rounds", Peacock’s "Requiem" and "December Wings”, Motian’s "Conception Vessel". There are also a number of startlingly effective free improvised ballads. As leader Marilyn Crispell says, "There’s a great depth of communication, a rare delicacy,” and the interaction between the musicians is indeed exceptional, giving The Wire reason to call the group “certainly one of the great piano trios of today” when the album was released in 2001. The album is now presented on vinyl for the first time, as a 2-Lp tip-on gatefold Luminessence reissue. 

“Marilyn Crispell has made two of the most beautiful piano trio records in recent memory...Nothing Ever Was, Anyway gave the first intimation of a different Ms Crispell: elegiac, meditative, more inclined to let the spaces between the notes breathe. The Annette Peacock tribute which marked the beginning of her association with ECM, seems to have liberated her. Ms Crispell's new sensibility has grown even more pronounced on the new album. A richly melancholic collection of improvisations and compositions by each member of her the trio, Amaryllis is suffused with a romanticism that Nothing Ever Was hinted at but held in check. It's also a record by a mature woman who knows something of solitude: sorrowful, yet finally affirmative, in the way that Joni Mitchell can be.” - Adam Shatz, New York Times

Tracklist:

Side 1
1             Voice From The Past
2             Amaryllis
3             Requiem
4             Conception Vessel / Circle Dance
5             Voices
6             December Greenwings

Side 2
7             Silence
8             M.E.
9             Rounds
10           Avatar
11           Morpion
12           Prayer