Jessica Williams Blue Abstraction: Prepared Piano Project 1985–1987 Pre-Echo Press USA, 2025 LP
One of the most remarkable archival finds of the year: the lost prepared-piano recordings of the Baltimore-born trans pianist and composer Jessica Williams. Best known for her jazz playing, and especially for her interpretations of Theleonious Monk, Williams’s most distinctive work was recorded privately in the ‘80s and has mostly gone unheard. What the archive yields is a lyrical John Cage, a folk-art Satie, the atonal creep of Schoenberg with the suave touch of Duke Ellington. Ranging from peaceful meditations to crepuscular experiments to the joyful dance of the Nigerian traditional “Odun-de,” Williams’s range of expression is only equalled by the sensitivity and depth of her playing. Incredible.
