Dark Day is an album by American jazz saxophonist Fred Anderson recorded live in 1979 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and released in a small batch on the tiny Austrian Message label. The performance was part of a series of AACM concerts presented by the museum. Anderson's Quartet features long-time partner trumpeter Billy Brimfield, bassist Steven Palmore and young drummer Hamid Drake, who contributes the piece "The Prayer", later retitled "Bombay (Children of Cambodia)".[1]
The album was reissued on CD by Atavistic in 2001 as part of their Unheard Music Series with a bonus CD including an unreleased master recorded at Verona Jazz 1979, only four days after the Chicago concert.[1]
In his review for AllMusic, Thom Jurek states about the Atavistic reissue "these two dates on a pair of very reasonably prices CDs, with great sound, are gifts rescued from the islands of obscurity, and should be listened to with the awe and wonder they inspire."[2]The Penguin Guide to Jazz says that "Dark Day is the definitive Anderson performance, sombre and cutting by turns, packed with muscular phrases but also strangely tender and vulnerable."[3]
Track listing
All compositions by Fred Anderson except as indicated
