Tisziji Munoz - Breaking the Wheel of Life and Death

Featuring Marilyn Crispell on piano, Don Pate on bass, Rashied Ali on drums and Tisziji Munoz on guitar, bells and compositions. Henry Kaiser put together a session for his guru and guitar-god Tisziji Munoz last year with a hand picked group that Henry chose for both guitarists to play with - this astonishing encounter was released a few months ago as "Auspicious Healing" and featured Marilyn Crispell on piano. The cosmic Coltrane vibe that Tisziji and Marilyn both share was brought together again a few months later for a powerful quartet date with Munoz' often regular rhythm team of Don Pate and former Coltrane-collaborator Rashied Ali. I just witnessed Marilyn playing in a trio with Barry Guy and Gerry Hemingway the other night at Tonic and she consistently blows mind with her ultra-deep playing. From the very first piece on this CD "Divine Urgancy" Munoz opens with that tone which gets the spirits flowing and trio around him float in cosmic space as time stands still. The title track comes next - a slow and mysterious Trane-like modal thing which takes its time to ascend higher and higher spiraling upwards as Tisziji lets those notes cascade like waves of energy flowing. Marilyn's solo comes next and it ever so elegant and beautiful, hushed and graceful that Munoz slows down the vibe to almost a standstill. Marilyn opens "Lemuria" with one of her superb harp-like solos which transcends up into the heavens as the tune itself grows from the innocent intro melody into another stellar region amongst the stars. The longest piece is "The Elder of the Mysteries" another tune in which the quartet sounds as if it is playing in slow motion as Tisziji starts to bend those notes upwards higher and higher one level at a time - Marilyn also taking a dream-inducing solo as well and a fine solo as well from Don Pate on acoustic bass. On this piece in particular there is some amazing call and response between the guitar and piano - notes that caress each other and us as well. The pulse picks up on the final long piece "God-Fire (Pyramid)" where Tisziji unleashes swarms of notes which crash over us in waves of urgent force. Marilyn also takes a spectacular piano solo - the forces of the gods to be reckoned with as she also spins notes in crashing waves, like a torrential rainstorm. Eventually the guitar also answers the call and explodes together with the piano as one cosmic force. Almost too much for us mere mortals!
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Breaking the Wheel of Life and Death
Tisziji Munoz
Release Date Mar 12, 2001
Label Harmonia Mundi

1 Divine Urgency! 4:39
2 Breaking the Wheel of Life and Death! 11:37
3 Piano Intro to Lemuria 2:35
4 Lemuria 14:11
5 The Elder of the Mysteries 17:04
6 God-Fire (Pyramid) 16:12
7 Spirit Path Intro 1:22

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