Released May 1999 (1999-05) Length 144:27 | Recorded 1981–1998 Label Tzadik Records | |
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Producer Fred Frith and Peter Hardt Genres Free improvisation, Avant-garde jazz, Experimental music Similar Shoe String Symphonettes, Learn to Talk, And the Weathermen Shrug Th, Scrabbling at the Lock, Great Jewish Music: Se | ||
Hallelujah, Anyway – Remembering Tom Cora is a 1999 double-CD compilation album by various artists dedicated to United States cellist and composer Tom Cora, who had died on April 9, 1998. It includes material composed in Cora's memory, songs he had written for other musicians and groups, and a selection of music he had performed and participated in. It was released in May 1999 by John Zorn's Tzadik Records.
Contents
One of the tracks, "Talking to the Tree", was performed at Cora's Memorial Concert in May 1998 by Cora's widow, Catherine Jauniaux, and one of his frequent collaborators, Fred Frith.
Reception
Writing in a review at AllMusic, Joslyn Layne described this retrospective compilation as "[u]pbeat, eclectic, eccentric, beautiful". She called Tom Cora "a significant improviser and extraordinary cellist", and said this release was important because it highlighted Cora's "undervalued brilliance". Layne called the album "a worthy eulogy" and "[h]ighly recommended for all with open ears".
Andrew Bartlett said in a review of Hallelujah, Anyway in the Seattle Weekly that it is an "eminently memorable" collection of tributes to Cora, who he said had taken his cello to "untold new places". Bartlett said "[y]ou won't find a better collection of post-1970s avant-garde guiding lights collected anywhere".
Track listing
Sources: AllMusic, Discogs, Tom Cora discography.
Personnel
Sources: Discogs, Tom Cora discography.