Carman Moore (feat. Sam Rivers) - Four Movements for a Fashionable Five-Toed Dragon

Here's a very interesting item supplied by "inamorata" who agreed to write a little intro to this record:

Carman Moore (feat. Sam Rivers): Four Movements for a Fashionable Five-Toed Dragon

01 Overture 2:44
02 1st Movement - Pastorale 11:22
03 2nd Movement - Urban Walk 14:58
04 3rd Movement - Colours 14:27
05 4th Movement - Folk Energy 12:47

This is a rather peculiar record, and a strange context for Sam Rivers to appear in. It may not be exactly rare (there is a copy on offer at *bay right now for USD 19.95) but definitely has not left many traces on the WWW. Here's what Rick Lopez in his amazing Sam Rivers Sessionography (http://www.bb10k.com/RIVERS.disc.html) says about it, quoting Anthony B. Rogers (I included the whole entry with the files):

"This is an LP produced by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council and released in celebration of the American Bicentennial. The music was first presented at the 9th Hong Kong Ready-to-Wear Festival... The music was composed by Carman Moore and performed by members of the American Symphony Orchestra with... soloists."

The soloists are Sam Rivers, Elliott Randal, Kenneth Bichel, Richard Davis, and Warren Smith. The score by Carman Moore is played by members of the American Symphony Orchestra conducted by Isaiah Jackson. Although it has a jazzy tinge, it is not at all what one would expect from the list of soloists or, more specifically, the presence of Sam Rivers. I find it strange and fascinating and quite nice, but judge for yourselves.

The LP was recorded on February 29, 1976 (again according to Rick Lopez), right in the middle between what I consider the absolute high points of Sam Rivers prolific oeuvre: the IAI duo sessions with Dave Holland (February 18), and the Quest session with Holland and Altschul (March 12--13), both featuring the most intense and intimate musical communication I can think of.

I was lucky enough to find a well-kept copy and ripped and cleaned it very carefully (all remastering was done in 24bit resolution). I'm glad to share it here with the kind help of kinabalu. To him and to all other contributors here I wish to express my gratitude for the amazing amount of fine and rare music I got from this blog. I am mostly too busy to leave a comment, but this (and , hopefully, some future indirect contributions) is my sincere thank you to all of you.


Kind regards,
inamorata