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Cloud Dance
Studio album by Collin Walcott
Released	1976 (1976)
Recorded	March 1975 (1975-03)
Studio	Tonstudio Bauer Ludwigsburg, W. Germany
Genre	World music, jazz
Length	39:30
Label	ECM 1062 ST
Producer	Manfred Eicher
Collin Walcott chronology
Cloud Dance (1976) Grazing Dreams (1977)

Cloud Dance is the debut album by American sitarist and composer Collin Walcott, recorded in March 1975 and released on ECM the following year. The quartet features rhythm section John Abercrombie, Dave Holland and Jack DeJohnette, the three of whom recorded their self-titled debut, Gateway that same month.

Background

Abercrombie had worked with Walcott the previous year on David Liebman's Drum Ode (1975), and would go on to play on Walcott's sophomore album Grazing Dreams (1977).

Reception

Professional ratings

Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic
The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide
The Penguin Guide to Jazz

The AllMusic review awarded the album 4½ stars.

The authors of the Penguin Guide to Jazz Recordings awarded the album 4 stars, praising its "freshness and originality," and stating: "'Prancing', for just tablas and double bass, is one of the most exciting performances in the ECM catalogue and convincing evidence of Walcott's desire to extend the idiom of the Garrison/Jones rhythm section... the album as a whole can quite reasonably be heard as a suite of related pieces that dance towards their thematic source in the closing title-piece."

Writing for Vinyl Vault, Geoff Anderson commented: "The musicians were all top-flight and leaders in their own right. They came together and mixed the eastern and western sounds to create something like acoustic jazz-fusion with an Indian twist. Abercrombie's ethereal electric guitar, floating above and around Walcott's sitar is particularly effective in creating a dreamy, cloud-like ambience on several tunes. On the cut 'Prancing,' Walcott on tabla and Holland on bass put the 'dance' in 'Cloud Dance' with a particularly energetic and, yes, danceable performance."

In a post for ECM blog Between Sound and Space, Tyran Grillo called the recording "one of most powerful albums ever to grace ECM's vinyl ... grooves," and wrote: "The telephone wires on the cover are like the strings of some large instrument, with the sky as its sound box. Its clouds don't so much dance as perform, caressing endless waves of voices careening through the ether. The joy of Cloud Dance is that it makes those voices intelligible. Fans of Oregon, of which Walcott was of course an integral part, need look no further for likeminded contemplation."

Track listing

All tracks are written by Collin Walcott, except as noted.

Personnel

• Collin Walcott – sitar, tabla
• John Abercrombie – guitar
• Dave Holland – bass
• Jack DeJohnette – drums

References

1. ECM discography Archived 2012-10-04 at the Wayback Machine accessed September 5, 2011
2. ECMRecords.com Archived 2013-01-29 at the Wayback Machine accessed January 2, 2013
3. ECMRecords.com Archived 2012-10-04 at the Wayback Machine accessed January 2, 2013
4. ECMRecords.com Archived 2012-10-06 at the Wayback Machine accessed January 2, 2013
5. ^ Allmusic Review accessed September 5, 2011
6. Swenson, J., ed. (1985). The Rolling Stone Jazz Record Guide. USA: Random House/Rolling Stone. p. 202. ISBN 0-394-72643-X.
7. ^ Cook, Richard; Morton, Brian (1998). The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD. Penguin Books. p. 1525.
8. Anderson, Geoff. "Vinyl Vault—Cloud Dance by Collin Walcott". Vinyl Vault. Retrieved April 6, 2021.
9. Grillo, Tyran (November 24, 2010). "Collin Walcott: Cloud Dance". Between Sound and Space. Retrieved April 6, 2021.

• ECM Records albums
• Collin Walcott albums
• 1976 debut albums
• Albums produced by Manfred Eicher