Conquistador

My jazz investigations of late have taken me to Bill Dixon, trumpeting producer of The Marzette Watts Ensemble, member of The early New York Contemporary Five, founder of the Jazz Composer's Guild (which became the Jazz Composer's Orchestra), a sideman on Cecil Taylor's classic Conquistador, and cited as a major influence by just about everybody. His hyper-rare first album can be found here, and it's really amazing. Composed and clamorous, sometimes heavy but always subtle, this is wild, dense music, particularly "Metamorphosis", far and away my most exciting discovery in a long time. R.I.P.