Richard Abrams – Levels And Degrees Of Light LP

Last weekend I found myself in a conundrum. I’d met a friend of a friend who was studying clarinet at a university level and I was just totally stumped as to what to talk to him about RE: that instrument. After being forced to learn it as a gateway to sax playing in high school (from which I gave up before I ever even touched a sax), I have a kind of ingrained dislike of the instrument. Which clarinet players do you ask about? Surely saying something about Benny Goodman is like asking a basketball player what they think of Michael Jordan. The only other clarinet player I can name (and who’s playing I love!)  is Laura Altman. Is it pretentious to drop Syd-free-improv heroes Great Waitress into polite small talk at the pub???

Coming in to work today and sorting through some records, I realised that leader of the AACM, Richard Abrams was in fact a clarinet player - another for this small pantheon! Levels of Degrees of Light also features a long, haunting solo from Abrams on the instrument on the A-Side and a skronk-off with  Anthony Braxton and Maurice McIntyre (which I swear I can hear a clarinet among the mix) on the B-Side! –Mitch

Secondhand US Pressing

Condition:

Record: Very Good + (surface noise during poetry passage on b-side otherwise plays well)

Cover: Very Good +

Label: Delmark Records

Cat #: DS-413

Year of press: ? (Probably early 1970s)

Photo is of the actual item for sale. 

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