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Collin Walcott: Grazing Dreams

By John Kelman
December 23, 2014
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Colin Walcott
Grazing Dreams
ECM Records
1977

It's always great to go back and revisit a longtime favorite not heard in too long. Today's Rediscovery? Collin Walcott's Grazing Dreams, an ECM classic with Don Cherry, John Abercrombie, Palle Danielsson and Dom Um Romao. A truly deep recording that makes Walcott's death in a car accident while on tour with Oregon nearly 30 years ago all the more tragic.

Walcott's work with Oregon, on his own and guesting with others with his voice, huge array of hand percussion and sitar, made him a unique voice in the jazz world who, along with his fellow mates in Oregon—Ralph Towner, Paul McCandless and Glen Moore—was truly one of the earliest musicians to explore the integration of music from other cultures into an improvised jazz setting. As capable of drawing real form from the ether in real time as he was working with and creating preconceived compositional form, his was a loss to the jazz world that truly cannot be measured.

I still miss him.

So, what are your thoughts? Do you know this record, and if so, how do you feel about it?

[Note: You can read the genesis of this Rediscovery column here .]

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