Henry Kaiser, Ray Russell

2015 release ** "...The Celestial Squid is so special... Here are two of the greats....no, the greatest." – Jim O'Rourke. "The Celestial Squid pairs guitarist/improviser Henry Kaiser with one of his earliest idols, British guitarist, producer, arranger, and composer Ray Russell. Kaiser has a long history of recording with players he admires and has been influenced by, including John Abercrombie, Derek Bailey, David Lindley, and Fred Frith. Russell may be somewhat of a cipher to non-guitar heads. He released a series of influential, fiery free jazz-rock sets in the late '60s and early '70s: Dragon Hill, Rites & Rituals, Live at the ICA 1971: Retrospective, and Secret Asylum. Since then, he's cut many more records (including 2006's Goodbye Svengali and 2013's Now, More Than Ever), produced, arranged, and been a sideman on funk, folk, jazz dates, and even sound library albums. Though always active, he hasn't exclusively revisited the incendiary improvisational terrain of his earliest recordings until now. Kaiser assembled a killer set of players for this: Electric bassist Michael Manring; Damon Smith on upright; drummers Weasel Walter and William Winant; and saxophonists Steve Adams, Joshua Allen, Phillip Greenlief, and Aram Shelton. They recorded live at Fantasy Studios, armed with only basic head charts; the rest unfolded as the music dictated. There are seven long pieces here; the shortest is nearly nine minutes.... Given the nature of this proceeding, a large band playing live with scant arrangements, deep listening was required by all participants. The disaster quotient was high, but The Celestial Squid delivers the opposite in spades. It is a welcome return to the athletic fringes for Russell and one of the most inspired and striking of Kaiser's two-guitar encounters to date."