While scoring a horror film in England in 1978,
Roger Kellaway took time out to record a way-out, free-form duo session with the British clarinetist
Tony Coe; the album was not released until 2000 on a small German label. This is
Kellaway unchained, letting fly with no preconceptions or restrictions whatsoever (except in the final blues track "The Burgundy Bruise"), creating music closer to style and spirit to that of avant-garde 20th century classical territory than his usual jazz stomping grounds. All you need to know about
Coe's work is that his two main influences at the time were
Paul Gonsalves and Alban Berg, and he leans decidedly towards Berg here, complementing
Kellaway with flights into outer atonal space on his rare 1840-vintage C clarinet. Experimenting wildly,
Kellaway uses the entire sonorous resources of the grand piano in the suitably cavernous intro to "The Caverns of Volere," indulges in prepared-piano plunks and strummings in "Dance of the 3-Legged Elves" (a weirdly fitting title), and leads
Coe on a mad chase in "Off We Go Into the Wild Blue Yonder." Yet these two voyageurs can be pensive, too ("Monday's Child"), and
Kellaway's famous sense of humor also pokes through in spots. ~ Richard S. Ginell