Gary Peacock Bill Frisell

Guitarist Bill Frisell and double bassist Thomas Morgan first appeared as a duo on 2017's Small Town. Recorded in 2016 at the Village Vanguard, it offered conversations in jazz, folk, R&B, and pop with an intimacy and improvisational elocution seldom matched in recordings cut with a live audience. Epistrophy was culled from the same Vanguard run proving the earlier recording no fluke. Like its predecessor, this nine-song set is comprised of jazz standards, folk and pop songs, show tunes, movie themes, and a Paul Motian original. (Both men played with him.)

This double CD is a performance of and tribute to the work of iconoclastic composer/songwriter/poet Annette Peacock. Ms. Peacock is a marginal figure, largely because of her own stubborn muse. She has, nonetheless, proved to be indispensable to the development of the music of both her ex-husbands, bassist Gary Peacock and pianist Paul Bley (both of whom, along with trumpeter Franz Koglmann, recorded another collection of her tunes called Annette on the Hat Art label in 1992). What makes this music so special is the pianism of Marilyn Crispell, usually associated with fiery improvisations and raucous solo and trio dates, with the music of Anthony Braxton. Peacock and Motian have played in restrained, quiet, mysterious bands for years, either with Paul Bley, John Surman, Bill Frisell, or any number of other ECM stalwarts.