When I heard it for the first time, I didn’t know what to make of it. I thought of it as a demonstration of the trombonist’s virtuosity. Then I read the composers’ general description of the piece, explaining its origin, in 1976, and how it was composed.
Now they’ve recorded it in a new performance at their studio in Taos, New Mexico.
At the time of its creation, we were studying Zen Buddhism, and were especially involved with the Zen shakuhachi master Goro Yamaguchi’s 1969 recording entitled “A Bell Ringing In the Empty Sky.” — Abbie Conant & William Osborne
And now I get it.
