Muhal Richard Abrams

Featuring: Cecil McBee

condition (record/cover): NM / NM 

Piano and bass, one afternoon at Classic Sound in New York, January 1986. No horns, no drums, nowhere to hide. Muhal Richard Abrams and Cecil McBee made Roots Of Blue for the tiny RPR imprint and it has stayed almost invisible ever since, which is absurd given what is on it. Abrams plays with that peculiar mix of Chicago stride, bop shorthand and hard-edged abstraction that nobody else ever quite managed, and McBee answers with a tone so woody and physical it functions as a second set of hands. "Time Into Space Into Time" opens the argument, "Metamor" turns it inside out, and the nine-minute title track settles into the slowest, most patient blues either man ever recorded.

Original 1986 pressing on RPR Records, with liner notes by Abrams himself. Never issued on CD, barely reissued at all. A duo record that deserves a lot more company on the shelf.