Based on Bass

The last of four albums recorded by this madcap New York City band co-led by Phillip Johnston and Joel Forrester, Beauty Based on Science ends their all-too-brief career on a high note. As usual, the pieces take their cues from a multitude of sources, including film noir soundtracks, Ellington, barrelhouse blues, and Steve Lacy, all performed with an odd combination of homage and tongue-in-cheek, spiced with a liberal dose of free jazz in the solo work. The near-obligatory tango shows up in Johnston's slyly titled "Waltz of the Recently Punished Catholic School Boys." Their horn arrangements are possibly richer than ever, shown to great advantage in compositions like "Come From Behind" (a small classic and frequent live performance highlight) and Johnston's "Rocky's Heart." Forrester's bouncy, infectious "Lobster in the Limelight," also a band mainstay, offers another example of the Micros at the top of their game, with its giddy riffs providing exactly the right balance and support for all manner of free soloing by Paul Shapiro and Dave Sewelson.

For the opening of the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, Krzysztof Penderecki set to music the text of the Ekecheiria (Truce) Agreement, agreed in 884 BC to ensure the peaceful running of the Games. In 2022, Munich celebrated and commemorated the 50th anniversary of the ""cheerful"" Games, which unfortunately ended in tragedy. In this context, Fumio Yasuda was commissioned to once again set Ekecheiria to music as a mirror of those events. The result is seven compositions for voices and bass clarinet based on IOC President Avery Brundage's controversial demand ""The Games Must Go On"", interspersed with sound bridges entitled ""Ekecheiria"" by Gareth Davis.