The downtown New York avant-garde scene of the late 1970s was both incredibly fertile and startlingly expansive; there was groundbreaking music being made in virtually every subgenre of classical, pop, and jazz music, and in retrospect, an unusually high percentage of that music was both conceptually fascinating and aesthetically rewarding. Composer was responsible for more than his share of it, both as leader of the and as sideman to such illustrious artists as , , and (who also served as a member of ). This collection brings together eight of 's more popular and influential recordings from that era, including (immortalized for contemporary hipsters by on their compilation) and 's take on the song a deconstructive collaboration with . approached pop music conventions as a composer: he took disco beats and punchy horn parts and funk bass figures and notated them, creating music that tried to wed the structure and discipline of classical music with the excitement and accessibility of pop music. Inevitably, the results were mixed: at times (notably the rather saccharine and the ultimately silly mangling of ) the music feels slightly strangled by its structural rigor, but at other times (like the rhythmically wacky and the -flavored ) shows how much depth and musicality can be brought to pop music by someone with serious compositional chops. Appearances by and add more period interest to the program, and anyone with fond memories of downtown music from this period will find plenty to enjoy here. ~ Rick Anderson