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Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
On-demand printed CD housed in Folkways-style slipcase with a sticker of the artwork and credits affixed [note: product shot is a mock-up image]. US orders will be shipped USPS media mail.
Includes unlimited streaming of The Mermaid's Purse: Live at Chatham College, 1976
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
In 1976 the Entourage Music and Theatre Ensemble reached a creative zenith. The nomadic troupe had just released The Neptune Collection, its iconic second album for Moses Asch’s Folkways Records, and decided to present the music to audiences across the rust belt in its most miasmic, elemental form. Extended stretches of full-group improvisation mingled with folk-tune like melodies during these performances, which featured multiple dancers spontaneously interpreting the music, at times in elaborate costume. Like contemporaries Popol Vuh, Sandy Bull, and Don Cherry, Entourage fused jazz and strains of traditional music from around the world to form a singular, kaleidoscopic vision of musical liberation. The Mermaid’s Purse: Live at Chatham College, 1976 is the most complete, best-preserved audio recording of these performances, featuring music from across the Entourage catalog. It is being released for the first time 45 years after its recording, and features liner notes by lone surviving member Wall Matthews.
credits
released March 4, 2022
RECORDING DATA:
Percussion Solo (Track 1); Theme, Gypsies (Track 2); Daleth (Track 4); The Mermaid’s Purse (Track 10); Sleazy Sue (Track 11); Aperture (Track 12); Soft Fist, Cleopatra Music, Harbinger (Track 13); and Outer Tiger (Track 14) are unreleased songs.
Days, King’s Birdcage (Track 1); Neptune Rising (Track 3); Nature Spirits (Track 5); Incantation for the Death of Self (Track 7); Euphoric Bells, Druid Dance (Track 8); and Space Needle Suicide (Track 9) appear as studio version recordings on The Neptune Collection (1976).
A Butterfly Impaled on a Dart (Solo for Viola) (Track 3); Giraffes We Ride Through Lightning Spilling (Track 4); and Silver Drum (Track 6) appear as studio version recordings on Entourage (1973)
CREDITS:
Produced by Wall Matthews
Recorded in 1976 at Chatham College in Pittsburgh, PA
Mixed and mastered by Pete Reiniger
Annotated by Wall Matthews
Photographs courtesy of Wall Matthews
Executive producers: Daniel E. Sheehy and John Smith
Production manager: Fred Knittel
Editorial assistance by Carla Borden, Kate Harrington, and Mary Monseur
Art direction, design, and layout by Darryl Norsen
Special thanks: Wendy Matthews, Laurie Cameron, Ara Fitzgerald, Martha Moore, Martha Myers, Marsha White, Bob Brown, Josh Rosenthal, John Smith, Jonathan Williger, and Fred Knittel.
supported by 11 fans who also own “The Mermaid's Purse: Live at Chatham College, 1976”
i never thought it possible ever again being impressed, shaken, thrown down to earth, lifted up into at least the third of heaven before i came across this album of don cherry today: glory be to jah, om shanti om, om mani padme hum, hare krishna, bismillahir rahmanir rahim ... here within music transcends itself into transcen_dance ... the cosmic play lila ... or one might say: dance: the dance of shiva nataraj ... to the supreme truth: tat tvam asi - you're it. torsten