TO BE CONTINUED
Carol Liebowitz, piano 
Claire de Brunner, bassoon
Daniel Carter, tenor, alto, soprano saxophones, flute, trumpet, clarinet 
Kevin Norton, vibraphone, drums, percussion

REVIEW OF POETRY FOR THE FUTURE

“Listen, and respond to what you hear.” That is the primary mantra in the highly effective acting technique developed by Sanford Meisner. The mantra offers a brilliantly simple approach that can take the actor out of their head and allow them to respond based on their own organic impulses. It trains actors to trust their ears and their responses—and one another. Something like this seems to underlay the work of the To Be Continued quartet—Carol Liebowitz (piano), Claire de Brunner (bassoon—and a flexible and nimble bassoon it is, too), Daniel Carter (saxophones, trumpet, clarinet, flute), and Kevin Norton (vibraphone, drums, percussion). Every track on Poetry from the Future is spontaneously improvised in the moment—no sheet music, no previous discussion, no map of any sort except “listen, and respond to what you hear.” Their listening and responding skills are exquisitely honed—to the point of spiritual exercise—and with absolute command of their instruments, they deliver a three-dimensional music that is continually surprising and coherent. It keeps moving forward but in unexpected paths—kind of an aural equivalent of the three-dimensional patterns that a cloud of starlings creates in the air. Highlights include “Every Which Way,” on which the entire quartet magically creates a multipart “composition;” “Cascadeoscope,” which does exactly that; “Sonic Mirage,” on which the piano and percussion contextualize the wind instruments’ offerings; and the Alice in Wonderland quality of “Beautiful Outcast.” The music breathes from beginning to end.

Mel Minter, melminter.com (Musically Speaking: an avid listener’s observations)
July 4, 2017