It's funny how sometimes, in the pursuit of knowledge, inspiration or epiphany, you miss little connections that stare you straight in the face...The Other Quartet is a group I came to a decade ago simply because they had recorded on the Knitting Factory Records label. I'd been bingeing on that label's music for a couple of months when I came across this disc. I knew nothing about them or their music but I figured if they had recorded on Knitting Factory there would be interesting music to be heard. Up to that point I'd heard twenty or thirty albums of the Knitting Factory catalogue and, while I was not unanimously enamored by everything I'd heard, I had never been bored. So I gave it shot. Needless, to say I loved it.
Fast forward about a decade (say, 2009) and time found me in love with Michael Bates' Outside Sources (which at this point had recorded four albums). It was a quartet of similar makeup and, to an extent, similar repertoire.
It was not until I began preparing this post that I realized that both ensembles featured the same trumpet player - Russ Johnson!
Anyway, all this to say, give this a listen. You'll hear a tight band playing together as a cohesive unit. A word about the recording: The actual CD is made up of 44 tracks - the first 11 tracks listed on the cover, a series of 4 second silent phantom tracks and two short unlisted tracks. I have included all 11 of the listed tracks and 1 of the unlisted tracks that lasts about a 1 1/2 minutes. I left off 1 of the other unlisted track because it is very short. I hope no one minds...
Enjoy!
