''Handscapes'' is a double live album by The Piano Choir featuring

Stanley Cowell Stanley Cowell (May 5, 1941 – December 17, 2020) was an American jazz pianist and co-founder of the Strata-East Records label. Early life Cowell was born in Toledo, Ohio. He began playing the piano around the age of four, and became intereste ...

, Nat Jones, Hugh Lawson,

Webster Lewis Webster Samuel Lewis (September 1, 1943 – November 20, 2002) was an American jazz and disco composer, arranger and keyboardist. Career Lewis was born in 1943 in Baltimore, Maryland. At a young age, his family encouraged him to take up music. L ...

Harold Mabern Harold Mabern Jr. (March 20, 1936 – September 17, 2019) was an American jazz pianist and composer, principally in the hard bop, post-bop, and soul jazz fields.Feather, Leonard; Gitler, Ira (2007) ''The Biographical Encyclopedia of Jazz''. p. 425 ...

Danny Mixon Daniel Asbury Mixon (born August 19, 1949) is an American jazz pianist. Mixon was born in Harlem, New York City. He gained some attention in the 1970s and continues to record and play in New York and abroad. He started off as a tap dancer, attend ...

, and

Sonelius Smith Sonelius Smith (born December 17, 1942) is known both for his innovative contributions to jazz as composer and pianist and for his collaborations with some of the late twentieth century's greatest jazz musicians. As a composer, Smith has created ...

recorded in 1972 and first released on the

Strata-East Strata-East Records is an American record company and label specialising in jazz founded in 1971 by Charles Tolliver and Stanley Cowell with the release of their first recording '' Music Inc.'' The label released over 50 albums in the 1970s. Man ...

label.

Reception

At the time of release

Ebony Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus '' Diospyros'', which also includes the persimmon tree. A few ''Diospyros'' species, such as macassar and mun ebony, are dense enough to sink in water. Ebony is fin ...

reviewer Phyl Garland said "One needn't be a "piano freak" to appreciate a truly new recording. First of all imagine seven gifted and talented pianists sitting down to seven grand pianos (with electric piano, organ, harpsichord, a few tambourines for spice) and proceeding to tear up these instruments – musically, that is. ...the torrent of sound springing from their 70 fingers is so powerful and majestic as to be unlike anything one has ever heard."Garland, P.
Ebony magazine review
June 1973 In his review for

AllMusic AllMusic (previously known as All-Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Mus ...

, Michael G. Nastos simply states "Brilliant".

Track listing

''Side A:'' # "Jaboobie's March" (Hugh Lawson) – 13:40 # " Straight, No Chaser" (

Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk ( October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the Jazz standard, standard jazz repertoire, includ ...

) – 6:00 # "

Precious Lord ''Precious Lord'' is an album by the American musician Al Green, released in 1982. It peaked at No. 1 on ''Billboards Top Gospel Albums chart. Critical reception Robert Christgau thought that "the Memphis groove of Al's first two Myrrh albums h ...

" (

Thomas A. Dorsey Thomas Andrew Dorsey (July 1, 1899 – January 23, 1993) was an American musician, composer, and Christian evangelist influential in the development of early blues and 20th-century gospel music. He penned 3,000 songs, a third of them gospel, in ...

) – 4:50 ''Side B:'' # "Sanctum Saintorium" (Sonelius Smith) – 13:40 # "Nation Time" (Webster Lewis) – 5:40 # "Effi" (Stanley Cowell) – 6:50 ''Side C:'' # "Man Extensions" (Danny Mixon) – 31:25 ''Side D:'' # "The Almoravids" (

Joe Chambers Joe Chambers (born June 25, 1942) is an American jazz drummer, pianist, vibraphonist and composer. In the 1960s and 1970s, Chambers gigged with many high-profile artists such as Eric Dolphy, Charles Mingus, Wayne Shorter, and Chick Corea an ...

) – 15:40 # "Killers" (Stanley Cowell) – 7:30

Personnel

, Nat Jones, Hugh Lawson,

, Sonelius Smith – piano,

electric piano An electric piano is a musical instrument that has a piano-style musical keyboard, where sound is produced by means of mechanical hammers striking metal strings or reeds or wire tines, which leads to vibrations which are then converted into ele ...

, vocals, percussion, African piano,

harpsichord A harpsichord is a musical instrument played by means of a musical keyboard, keyboard. Depressing a key raises its back end within the instrument, which in turn raises a mechanism with a small plectrum made from quill or plastic that plucks one ...

References

{{Authority control 1973 albums Stanley Cowell albums Strata-East Records albums