Famously turned on to jazz through the music of John Coltrane, pianist Marilyn Crispell was relatively unknown in 1978 when multi-instrumentalist and composer Anthony Braxton happened to hear her. Immediately awed by her capabilities, Braxton soon made Crispell his principal pianist for well over 10 years — including in his great '80s quartet featuring Mark Dresser and Gerry Hemingway. With Braxton, Crispell performed some of the most complex music of the time with extraordinary precision, power, and grace, establishing herself as one of the most virtuosic and fiercely-expressive pianists around.

More recently, Crispell has developed an increasingly romantic and jazz-influenced vocabulary. A string of successful albums for ECM, including the triumphant Nothing Ever Was, Anyway: The Music of Annette Peacock (1997), debuted her trio of Gary Peacock and Paul Motian. Almost immediately the group was widely regarded as among the most significant piano trios since Bill Evans, Scott LaFaro, and Paul Motian first convened. Crispell's most recent effort, a solo disc called Vignettes, presents her at her most effusive, performing both compositions and free improvisations, and producing performances of profound beauty.

Opening the evening is the duo of premier European percussionist and long-time Crispell collaborator Paul Lytton and the gifted young trumpeter Nate Wooley. As critics Richard Cook and Brian Morton have recognized, Lytton is "one of the drummer-percussionists least bound by the idea of time, rhythm, or determined pulse," instead favoring "broad, extended areas of sound, opening and unfolding like an anatomist." With the longstanding trio of Lytton, Barry Guy, and Evan Parker; in Barry Guy's London Jazz Composers or New Orchestras; and in Guy's trio with Marilyn Crispell, Lytton has helped define free improvisation for over thirty years. His partner here, New Jersey-based trumpeter Nate Wooley, is a master texturalist, thoughtfully reshaping the listener's conception of movement, space, and tonality. Wooley regularly performs solo improvisations and has worked regularly with Anthony Braxton, Tony Malaby, and Herb Robertson. Together, as the duo's MySpace helpfully explains, "We are two people. Paul plays percussion. Nate plays trumpet. We play our instruments at the same time."

Crispell will also join the pair to round out an exciting trio for the latter portion of their set. Don't miss what will be a truly-memorable performance by some of the most imaginative working instrumentalists at a beautiful venue.

marilyncrispell.com

myspace.com/paullyttonandnatewooley