2 Days in April

2 Days in April
Live album by
Fred Anderson
Released2000
RecordedApril 1 & 2, 1999
VenueDay 1: Bezanson Recital Hall, UMass, Amherst
Day 2: Killian Hall, MIT, Cambridge
GenreJazz
Length100:14
LabelEremite
ProducerMichael Ehlers
Fred Anderson chronology
The Milwaukee Tapes Vol. 1
(2000) 		2 Days in April
(2000) 		Fred Anderson Quartet Volume Two
(2000)

2 Days in April is a double album by a free jazz quartet consisting of saxophonists Fred Anderson and Kidd Jordan, bassist William Parker and drummer Hamid Drake, documenting two 1999 concerts at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology at Cambridge. It was released on Eremite, a label founded by producer Michael Ehlers.[1] Anderson and Jordan first meeting was at a mid-80s AACM concert in Chicago, but this is their first recording together.[2]

Reception

Professional ratings
Review scores
SourceRating
AllMusic[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings[4]
Tom Hull – on the WebB−[5]
Encyclopedia of Popular Music[6]

In his review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek states:

There isn't anything remotely 'inside' about the playing on these two CDs. They are documents of concerts in which two brilliant veteran saxophonists engaged each other, stretched each other's musical vocabularies to the breaking point and pushed their rhythm section into places they hadn't dreamed of going before.

— Jurek, Thom. Fred Anderson - 2 Days in April: Review at AllMusic. Retrieved November 29, 2014.

Phil Freeman, writing for Burning Ambulance, commented: "sprawling, sputtering, ferocious liveage featuring two killer, veteran saxophonists and maybe the best rhythm team in early '00s free jazz. A high-water mark for everyone involved."[7]

The authors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings wrote: "there is no possibility of detachment from this music, which is either a token of its power or a sign that perhaps it is so intensely private that it fails to communicate."[4]

Track listing

All compositions by Anderson / Drake / Jordan / Parker

Disc One: 1st Day

  1. – 17:26
  2. – 11:55
  3. – 15:44
  4. – 10:01

Disc Two: 2nd Day

  1. – 10:00
  2. – 17:17
  3. – 17:51

Personnel

References

  1. ^ 2 Days in April at Eremite Records
  2. ^ Original Liner Notes by Ed Hazell
  3. ^ Jurek, Thom. Fred Anderson - 2 Days in April: Review at AllMusic. Retrieved November 29, 2014.
  4. ^ a b Cook, Richard; Brian Morton (2008). The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings. The Penguin Guide to Jazz (9th ed.). London: Penguin. p. 37. ISBN 978-0-14-103401-0.
  5. ^ Hull, Tom. "Jazz (1960–70s)". Tom Hull – on the Web. Retrieved May 29, 2022.
  6. ^ Larkin, Colin (2006). Encyclopedia of Popular Music. Oxford University Press. p. 177.
  7. ^ Freeman, Phil (April 30, 2012). "A List of 50 Jazz Albums". Burning Ambulance. Retrieved May 29, 2022.