condition (record/cover): NM / NM

December 19th, 1986, one session, six musicians, and a leader who refuses to use them all at the same time. Colors In Thirty-Third is Muhal Richard Abrams treating instrumentation itself as composition: seven pieces that shuffle between trio, quartet, quintet and full sextet, so the record keeps changing colour underneath you. John Purcell is everywhere on reeds and this may be his best documented hour; John Blake brings violin, Dave Holland plays cello rather than bass, Fred Hopkins handles the bottom and Andrew Cyrille gets his own dedication with the opening "Drumman Cyrille". "Piano-Cello Song" is eight and a half minutes of two instruments circling each other with enormous care.

Original Black Saint pressing, 1987, produced by Giovanni Bonandrini. Chamber music made by people who came up playing free. Quietly one of the best things the label ever put out.