Muhal Richard Abrams

condition (record/cover): NM / EX

Two days in September 1984, an octet, and a title that tells you exactly where to point your ears. After the big band statements of the early eighties, Muhal Richard Abrams pulls the focus inward on View From Within and starts building music out of unlikely small combinations: vibes against flute against percussion, piano shadowed by clarinet and bass clarinet, whole passages where the group thins to almost nothing before it thickens again. Stanton Davis on trumpet and flugelhorn and the extraordinary multi-reedist John Purcell do most of the front-line work. "Down At Peppers" runs twelve and a half minutes and is the sound of a Chicago pianist remembering exactly where he came from, while "Positrain" and "Inner Lights" close things out at chamber scale.

Original Black Saint pressing, 1985, produced by Giovanni Bonandrini. Restless, tender, endlessly re-listenable. The one Abrams album that rewards headphones more than volume.