Sibanye (We Are One)

Album review

Sibanye/We Are One is the title of an album recorded at An die Musik Live in Baltimore, Maryland on June 30, 2007. Released the following year on the Intakt label, it was warmly received and has been critically acclaimed ever since. For their first-ever collaborative engagement, the Marilyn Crispell/Louis Moholo-Moholo duo chose a 100-percent improvisational approach, rooted within each individual's life-long commitment to the art and discipline of shared creative exploration. Moholo, a South African drummer who first gained international fame for his work with Johnny Dyani and Dudu Pukwana, was perfectly suited for interaction with Crispell, a Philadelphia-born pianist who is admired and respected as one of the most astute and highly evolved creative musicians of her generation. Precedents for the sounds that resulted from her historic meeting with Moholo may be found among her duets with Gerry Hemingway and her periodic pairings with Anthony Braxton. Anyone who has witnessed her live one-on-one interaction with another artist will recall how she maintains friendly and highly focused eye contact. Photographic evidence suggests this tendency as one explanation for the subtlety and sensitivity that characterized her mutually respectful communion with Louis Moholo-Moholo on that summer day in Baltimore.
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