Stanley Cowell Trio - Illusion Suite (Luminessence Series Vinyl)

Luminessence Series Vinyl LP in Tip-On Gatefold Jacket

This is the ECM Luminessence reissue of Illusion Suite, catalog ECM 1026 / 450 5321, a single LP with three tracks a side. ECM presents it in a tip-on gatefold jacket with new liner notes and an archival photograph. The notes are by pianist and writer Ethan Iverson, who writes that "Cowell leaps from one idea to the next, tackling diverse genres with gusto" and calls the album "a fearless and experimental excursion that embraces multitudes." ECM launched Luminessence in 2023 as a reissue series for its back catalog, and the label says many of the titles are cut from the original analog master tapes.

Illusion Suite is Stanley Cowell's only recording for ECM. The trio was Cowell on piano, Stanley Clarke on bass and Jimmy Hopps on drums, recorded at Sound Ideas Studio in New York in November 1972 and produced by Manfred Eicher. ECM issued the album in 1973 as ECM 1026. All six pieces are Cowell's compositions, and "Emil Danenberg" carries the name of his piano teacher at the Oberlin Conservatory.

ECM's notes quote the Down Beat review of 1974, which found that the album "creeps up on you and hits you in the ear in subtle ways" and that it "most directly and accurately pictures [Stanley Cowell's] fresh keyboard approach."

Cowell was born in Toledo, Ohio, in 1941 and died in 2020. He studied classical piano at Oberlin, where he played with Roland Kirk, and took a graduate degree in piano at the University of Michigan. He worked with Max Roach, Bobby Hutcherson, Harold Land and Charles Tolliver, with whom he co-founded the independent label Strata-East, and later recorded with the Heath Brothers and taught at Rutgers University's Mason Gross School of the Arts.

Tracklist

Side A

1. Maimoun
2. Ibn Mukhtarr Mustapha
3. Cal Massey

Side B

4. Miss Viki
5. Emil Danenberg
6. Astral Spiritual