Octopus
Released: January 2018
- Kris Davis – piano
- Craig Taborn – piano
Tracks:
- 1. Interruptions One
- 2. Ossining
- 3. Chatterbox
- 4. Sing Me Softly Of The Blues – Interruptions Two
- 5. Interruptions Three
- 6. Love in Outer Space
- David Breskin – Producer
- Ron Saint Germain – Engineer
Octopus
Released: January 26, 2018
- Kris Davis – piano
- Craig Taborn – piano
Tracks:
- 1. Interruptions One
- 2. Ossining
- 3. Chatterbox
- 4. Sing Me Softly Of The Blues – Interruptions Two
- 5. Interruptions Three
- 6. Love in Outer Space
Octopus – JazzTimes – Mac Randall
March 21, 2018Kris Davis / Craig Taborn Octopus (Pyroclastic) An oceangoing organism with one brain and eight independent neuron-bearing links is the perfect image to invoke for a rather intense collection of piano duets. Taborn’s guest appearance on Davis’ 2016 album Duopoly …
Octopus – LA Times – Chris Barton
March 16, 2018Kris Davis & Craig Taborn’s “Octopus”: A continuation of sorts for Davis’ 2016 album “Duopoly,” which paired her expressive piano with a variety of composers from the front edge of jazz, this album is drawn from live performances with a …
OCTOPUS – Kevin Le Gendre
February 23, 2018Piano duos have been around for a while but recent iterations – Kaja Drachsler-Eve Risser: Craig Taborn-Vijay Iyer; Kris Davis-Benoit Delbecq – have served as a reminder of the richness of the format. As for Davis and Taborn, They exploit …
OCTOPUS – Village Voice – Michael J. Agovino
February 13, 2018In jazz, the duo is perhaps the most underappreciated, and least commercially viable, of any combo setting. Consider all the classic trios, quartets, quintets, and sextets throughout the music’s history. Even septets, octets, and nonets get more love. Big bands, …
OCTOPUS – The New York City Jazz Record – John Sharpe
February 11, 2018Pianist Kris Davis’ 2015 self-released Duopoly CD/DVD set paired her with eight first-time partners and generated several ongoing collaborations. But while Davis has also toured with pianist Angelica Sanchez and drummer Billy Drummond as a consequence, it is the chemistry …
OCTOPUS – The Wire – Phil Freeman
February 11, 2018Kris Davis & Graig Taborn Octopus Pyroclastic CD/DL In 2016, pianist Kris Davis recorded Duopoly, a collection of duets with eight colleagues: reeds players Tim Berne and Don Byron, guitarists Bill Frisell and Julian Lage, drummers Billy Drummond and Marcus …
OCTOPUS – The New York Times – Giovanni Russonello
January 26, 2018Ms. Davis and Mr. Taborn are two pianists with an ear for stark clarity and unflinching abstraction. Each is the kind of player whose presence is reason enough to go see a gig: They can hold an entire band together, …
Octopus – The Wall Street Journal – Martin Johnson
January 23, 2018Live recordings of the jazz piano duet offer insights into the roots of the players’ technique. Piano duet recordings are rare in jazz compared with trios or solos, yet they offer huge rewards. A duet of artists with contrasting styles—say, Chick …
OCTOPUS – stereogum.com – Phil Freeman
January 22, 2018Kris Davis/Craig Taborn, Octopus(Pyroclastic) Two-piano albums are relatively rare in jazz (or any other music), but often interesting. Cecil Taylor made one with Mary Lou Williams that’s like two rams charging at each other headfirst. This record, featuring Kris Davis and …
OCTOPUS – WBGO – Nate Chinen
January 22, 2018The conversation unfolds in an urgent quietude, signals blinking in the dark. These are the protocols of “Love in Outer Space,” a ballad by Sun Ra, as reimagined for two pianos by Craig Taborn and Kris Davis. It’s the closing track from Octopus, a mind-meld …
OCTOPUS – The Financial Times
January 20, 2018Core differences are at their clearest as percussive bell-like tones and rococo lines complement lyrical ripples Kris Davis & Craig Taborn Octopus (Pyroclastic Records) There are times when the criss-crossing lines and rumbling full-piano chords captured on this dazzling live …
Octopus – Jazz Trail – Filipe Freitas
January 16, 2018Label: Pyroclastic Records, 2018 Lineup – Kris Davis: piano; Craig Taborn: piano. wo of the most formidable pianists and master improvisers of today’s jazz, Kris Davis and Craig Taborn, let their endless creativity fly high with a live recording session that comprises …
Octopus – Concert Film
Kris Davis & Craig Taborn in performance
October 10, 2016
University of California, San Diego
My producer, David Breskin, and engineer, Ron Saint Germain, heard this same connection from the control room. After the recording, David pulled us into a small room at the studio, and asked if we would be interested in further developing this duo. Sixteen months later, we had a dozen concerts planned across the U.S. and the very same, amazing Ron Saint Germain to travel with us and document every night with a light-weight, carry-on-ready system he’d designed to optimize recording two grand pianos in a diverse array of settings.
Craig and I each wrote a few pieces for the tour, and we added Carla Bley’s “Sing Me Softly of The Blues” and Sun Ra’s “Love in Outer Space.” Each concert was different, in some cases radically so. As the tour went on, we often left out large sections of the compositions in favor of developing new, wholly improvised sections which became more and more expansive. For me, this was an optimal experience as an improviser and something that can only be accomplished when musicians play night after night, with structure but complete freedom, not knowing where things might go, exploring the unknown.
An occasional response of listeners during the tour was that Craig and I, in performance, were not so much two different musicians as one sort of shape-shifting organism. As such, we’ve decided to name the duo Octopus. We hope you enjoy listening!
Kris Davis, Ossining, Sept. 23, 2017