La pubblicazione in questi giorni dello storico The Topography of the Lungs per la prima volta su cd è notizia assai gradita ai sostenitori della musica improvvisata che hanno lungamente e spesso invano cercato di poter ascoltare l'album in vinile (ma pochissime furono le copie stampate all'esordio della Incus, nel 1970, senza più alcuna ristampa ufficiale, almeno in occidente), ed è naturalmente anche un ricordo affettuoso dello scomparso Derek Bailey, qui protagonista con Han Bennink ed Evan Parker. Il cd esce per l'etichetta Psi di Parker con nuova copertina, nuova titolazione e con un paio di brani in aggiunta al già ricco materiale originale.
Si leggano a proposito la bella recensione scritta da Derek Taylor su Bagatellen e questo personale ricordo di Henry Kaiser: "Back in early 70's Boston, during my college years, I picked up this LP in a shop and went back to my dorm room and listened to it. The experience totally transformed my life. I had grown up listening to music with lots of improvisation in it. From Hindustani Classical Music, to the psychedelic sounds of my Bay Area's music scene in the late 60's, to blues, free jazz, and everything else that was flying about in the airwaves at that time. The music on topography really surprised me for 3 reasons:
1) There was more improvisation here than in any recorded music that I had ever heard. I knew what improvisation smelled like and this was the richest, curiously complex, informationally dense, and most fragrant improvisation ever.
2) Parker, Bailey, and Bennink played like themselves, with completely original personal vocabularies, and they sounded like nobody else.
3) The guitar! Guitar was my favorite instrument to listen to and for some reason I could instantly grok what Derek was saying through his guitar, he was speaking my language and this was the first time I had ever had someone speak to me in this language. (Eugene Chadbourne has mentioned having a similar experience in the notes to his first solo guitar LP on Parachute, where he wrote of his initial exposure to Bailey).
So I had no choice, I had to get a guitar and find my own personal expression through it. So the next day I went to Tavian Music, picked up a black Fender Telecaster and started to figure out how to produce and control the guitar vocabulary that Derek was working with. The rest was history. I had not listened to Topography for perhaps 10 years until this new CD reissue finally appeared last week. Popping it in the CD player, pressing play, I was surprised to discover that I had all the music memorized; that I knew every note and sound that was coming next. Despite that familiarity, everything that I heard still sounded fresh and surprising. I cannot imagine anything more satisfying to listen to than this recording. It's both timeless and nostalgic of the era when the sort of music that has been my life's work was first being played. And this is THE ensemble recording that best exemplifies that." - Henry Kaiser
