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Amaryllis is an album by pianist Marilyn Crispell, bassist Gary Peacock, and drummer Paul Motian recorded in 2000 and released on the ECM label.[1]

Amaryllis
Studio album by Marilyn Crispell
Released	2001
Recorded	February 2000
Genre	Avant-garde jazz
Length	55:04
Label	ECM
Producer	Manfred Eicher
Marilyn Crispell chronology
Dark Night, and Luminous (1998) Amaryllis (2001) Storyteller (2003)

According to Crispell, four of the pieces on the album were improvised.[2] In an interview, she recalled: "The title piece, 'Amaryllis,' sounds completely written, but it's not at all. Gary started a bass line, I came in with something, and we ended up playing the same lines at the same time. That's a very intimate thing. Something that I think is not as easy to pull off in a performance. It can be done, but the intimacy of the recording studio was particularly conducive to complete improvisation."[2]

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[3]
The Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings	[4]
Tom Hull – on the Web	B+[5]
The Guardian	[6]

The AllMusic review by Thom Jurek awarded the album 4 stars stating: "on Amaryllis, Crispell, Peacock, and Motian have established a new yet authoritative voice in melodic improvisation for the jazz trio".[3]

The authors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings awarded the album 4 stars, calling it "a lovely set, intense and languid by turns and full of wonderful invention," and stated: "The piano tone is gorgeous and Peacock is playing with a fuller voice than ever. A record to absorb yourself in many times over."[4]

In an article for The Guardian, John Fordham commented: "Like running into a relative of somebody you know well, this probing set betrays a gesture here, a mannerism there, a certain chime to a laugh or intensity of glance that is at once familiar and new... This set has Crispell investigating a more lyrical and less awesomely pianistic music... Not all the music is reflective... on the fast, liquid 'Rounds' Crispell plays a devastating solo of tidal energies and hurtling precision. Maybe it is too close to contemporary classical music... for some jazz listeners, but this represents the continuing evolution of a remarkable force, in an ideal context."[6]

Writing for The New York Times, Adam Shatz stated: "Amaryllis is less rarefied than her previous record, suffused with a romanticism that Nothing Ever Was, Anyway hinted at but ultimately held in check. It's also a record by a mature woman who knows something of solitude: sorrowful yet finally affirmative, in the way that Joni Mitchell can be."[7]

Track listing

All compositions by Marilyn Crispell except as indicated

1. "Voice From The Past" (Gary Peacock) - 5:54
2. "Amaryllis" - 3:33
3. "Requiem" (Peacock) - 4:40
4. "Conception Vessel / Circle Dance" (Paul Motian) - 5:35
5. "Voices" (Motian) - 4:28
6. "December Greenwings" (Peacock) - 4:07
7. "Silence (For P.)" - 3:17
8. "M.E. (For Manfred Eicher)" (Motian) - 5:15
9. "Rounds" - 4:05
10. "Avatar" - 4:14
11. "Morpion" (Motian) - 3:30
12. "Prayer" (Mitchell Weiss) - 5:42

• • Recorded at Avatar Studios in New York City in February 2000

Additional sources (film and video)

• ECM50 | 2000 - Marilyn Crispell: Amaryllis – episode in a series of 51 short films on ECM (2020) by IJ.Biermann

Personnel

• Marilyn Crispell — piano
• Gary Peacock — bass
• Paul Motian — drums

References

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