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Ode to the Living Tree

1995 studio album by Andrew Cyrille

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 9, 2025
Entity authorityQ110969509 ↗
Source-derived summary

Ode to the Living Tree is an album by drummer Andrew Cyrille. It was recorded in December 1994 at XIPPI Studio in Dakar, Senegal, and was released by Venus Records in 1995, as well as by Evidence Music in 1997. On the album, Cyrille is joined by saxophonists Oliver Lake and David Murray, pianist Adegoke Steve Colson, bassist Fred Hopkins, and percussionist Mor Thiam. According to Cyrille, it was the first jazz album recorded in Senegal.

Reception

In a review for AllMusic, Alex Henderson wrote: "the drummer leads an inspired, cohesive quintet... the performances are generally quite melodic; in fact, Ode is essentially an album of inside/outside post-bop... rather than ultra-radical, ultra-dissonant free jazz... Although not as radical as some of Cyrille's other work, Ode to the Living Tree is an excellent CD that he should be proud of."

Willard Jenkins, writing for Jazz Times, called Cyrille "a vital and very much underrated percussionist and bandleader" who "always brings a sense of the Motherland to his music, whether exploring free landscapes, or structured outings like most on this date... There is a feeling of Trane meets Sun Ra at the corner of Murray & Lake on this date as the spirits of those two grand masters are in the air."

Track listing

"Coast to Coast" (Cyrille) – 5:45

"A Love Supreme - Acknowledgement and Resolution" (John Coltrane) – 19:43

"Mr.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Ode to the Living Tree” as 1995 studio album by Andrew Cyrille. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Living, Tree and studio.

Editorial reviewBest approached as a cultural-object dossier: authorship and date matter, but circulation and reception often explain the wider significance. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1994, 1995, 1997—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1995. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Living, Tree and studio providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Ode to the Living Tree”, the useful work is to connect “1995 studio album by Andrew Cyrille” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 9, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q110969509. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1994, 1995 and 1997.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

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  2. Expand the search: follow Ode to the Living Tree primary sources, Ode to the Living Tree archive and Living research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
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Questions for further research

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Ode to the Living Tree” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.