This Michael Bisio Quartet is a new kindred-spirit assembly featuring the veteran bassist alongside Mat Maneri (viola), Karl Berger (vibraphone) and Whit Dickey (drums). Their melodiously alluring debut album, MBefore, features the four virtuoso improvisers communing on a set of original compositions by Bisio & Berger, plus a free-minded take on the standard "I Fall in Love Too Easily". "This is a banquet, a true feast. It was created by people who gave themselves over to the concept and reveled in the generation of beautiful sound." Matthew Shipp Michael Bisio has earned just praise for his textured solo performances as well as collaborations with the likes of veteran multi-instrumentalist Joe McPhee. But it's perhaps his 13-year membership in the Matthew Shipp Trio that has earned him widest renown, having toured on both sides of the Atlantic along with recording numerous albums with the pianist. Cadence magazine marveled over the way Bisio's playing "seems to be produced by sorcery." From the liner notes by Matthew Shipp: "Michael Bisio is one of the greatest bassists on the planet but this album isn't about his bass playing. It's about his humanity. Bisio is a thoughtful group leader who has a knack for bringing the right people together and setting them up in such a way that they feel at one with the group dynamic." MBefore is about the ensemble and its collective consciousness it's about the group aesthetic, with the resulting sound having a transparent quality. With vibes and viola, there's a sonic clarity, even a kind of sweetness. That clarity and transparency allows the contrapuntal quality of the music to be fully revealed you can hear everyone's lines at once, and the subtle harmonies created by the crossing of those individual lines. On that clarity and transparency.. there's no more compelling improviser on a stringed instrument than Mat Maneri, and his viola sings darkly with light throughout MBefore. As for Karl Berger the illustrious octogenarian vibraphonist who brought two new compositions to this album as well he remains profoundly on top of his game. Bisio has worked with him regularly since moving a decade ago from NYC up to Berger's neck of the woods in the Hudson River Valley. As Shipp notes, Berger is "a master of space, a master of restraint, a master of melding his sound in the sonic ambient." For those not yet familiar enough with Karl Berger, a brief bio: Born & raised in Germany, began playing piano at age ten. During the 1960s, he started playing vibraphone & received a doctoral degree in musicology. A member of Don Cherry's band in Paris, he accompanied Cherry to New York City to record Symphony for Improvisers in 1966. And he stayed, recording his own debut album for ESP later that year. Together with Ornette Coleman and Ingrid Sertso, he founded the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY in 1972 the pointed mission being to encourage students to pursue their own ideas about music. Having worked with Carla Bley, Dave Holland, Lee Konitz, John McLaughlin, Sam Rivers, Pharoah Sanders; he also collaborated with Bill Laswell as musical arranger & conductor, thus contributing to albums by Jeff Buckley, Sly & Robbie, Anglique Kidjo, and more. TAO Forms is honored to present his very latest work as performer and composer here on MBefore. Michael Bisio: bass, compositions Karl Berger: vibraphone, compositions Mat Maneri: viola Whit Dickey: drums
