Various

In three years, the Creative Improvised Music Project has released a hundred projects. Selections from 15 of these (#76-90 in the series) are featured on this sampler. Eight are excerpts of longer works and at least three are really annoying in their brevity and incompleteness, notably the snatched selections from CIMPhonia 1998 Pt. 2, Burton Greene’s “Lennie Lives” and Steve Swell’s “Saved As One.” Even so, there is some truly great music here from duo ballads by Hugh Ragin, Michael Bisio and Glenn Spearman to strong ensemble projects like John Gunther’s Axis Mundi and the Marshall Allen Quartet. Multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee is featured in three performances, including the marvellous “Solero” in his collaborative trio with Dominic Duval and Jay Rosen. This profound piece conveys an intensity that I associate with great masters like Bechet, Bird and Coltrane. Certainly McPhee numbers among them. If you want to hear the sounds of New York’s creative jazz scene, then bypass the big apple because C.I.M.P. has to become your label of choice.